Carl St.Clair selects Verdi’s ‘Requiem’ for his Pacific Symphony finale

Carl St.Clair has had cause for celebration, seemingly experiencing every emotion as his 35th and final season as music director of the Pacific Symphony comes to a close.

Gratitude and loyalty came up several times in a conversation on Tuesday, when the Laguna Beach resident shared his thoughts on a long career with the Costa Mesa-based orchestra.

Pacific Symphony will perform Giuseppe Verdi’s “Requiem” to cap the current season, with shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. A Sunday matinee performance is scheduled for 3 p.m.

The celebrated conductor plans to continue leading some musical performances when he transitions to music director laureate, but he is handing over the reins of the music director position to Alexander Shelley.

The proper moment to pass the baton had lived in St.Clair’s subconscious for some time. Leading into rehearsal just two days before the concert, St.Clair had a recollection of some of the pieces he considered for this finale — Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 9” and Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection,” to name a couple.

St.Clair thought that Verdi could “give people a chance to be thankful, to be humble, to be communally in the same space with hopefully very deep feelings.” Then he invoked “libera me,” words that appear at the end of “Requiem” that in Latin mean “deliver me.”

“When I thought about that, I thought about it in a much more communal, collective way,” St.Clair said. “Not just ‘deliver me,’ although I’m praying this all the time. But also deliver Pacific Symphony into its next chapter, into the next journey that it takes with Alexander.

“I just really thought that’s very poignant. … There’s a C major chord. It’s just hopeful. It says that after all this hard work is hope for a beautiful future as we move into the 50th anniversary and into the next chapter of the orchestra’s life because my goal all along with this transition, which I announced already three years ago, is really so that there would not be one stutter step, one skipped beat in the growth, the progression and the development of Pacific Symphony.”

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It was important for St.Clair to share this season with those who have been major contributors throughout the journey. He said this week’s concerts would mark the 166th time that he has worked with Pacific Chorale.

Raquel Gonzalez (soprano), Daryl Freedman (mezzo-soprano), Won Whi Choi (tenor) and Zaikuan Song (bass) will also lend their voices as soloists.

“The one thing that’s really kept us moving forward is the loyalty,” St.Clair said. “The loyalty of our audience, the loyalty of our board, the loyalty of our musicians — their talents, but also their loyalty,” he reiterated.

St.Clair said he always believed the Pacific Symphony should be a “locally-acclaimed” production.

“We need to be loved and respected and kept close to the vest and in the hearts of Orange County,” St.Clair said. “We are Orange County’s orchestra, and I want to be the beacon of artistic achievement for Orange County.”

A local resident since 1994, St.Clair met his wife, Susan, the first week he moved to the Table Rock neighborhood in South Laguna. Their children, Cade and Siena, graduated from Laguna Beach High, although the family lived bi-continentally in Germany and the United States as the kids were growing up.

“If I didn’t have to, I wouldn’t leave the city limits,” St.Clair said. “I really wouldn’t. It’s just everything that I ever wanted. I met my wife there, our children were born there, brought up there, St. Catherine’s of Siena, that’s our parish, that’s where we were baptized. … It just has everything that someone of my spirit needs in order to remain nurtured.”

Laguna Beach’s arts scene includes an array of musical programming. St.Clair said he has had the opportunity to conduct the Laguna Beach Community Concert Band on a couple of occasions, adding he knows most of its members.

“It’s such a live area when it comes to not only the visual arts, but all the arts,” St.Clair said of his hometown. “The theater is great. Pageant of the Masters, Art-A-Fair and Sawdust. For a town of a little bit less than 25,000 people, it’s pretty amazing.”

Outside of music, St.Clair said the family has worked for many years at the Friendship Emergency Shelter on Laguna Canyon Road.

“We do this as part of a dedicated team of fellow parishioners from St. Catherine [of Siena Parish],” St.Clair said. “Every time we serve there, we are the ones being nourished.”