Music Director,

Jorge Mester is recognized throughout the world as a preeminent conductor, renowned for the excellence and prominence he brings to every organization he leads. The 2011-12 season marks his 8th season as music director of the Naples Philharmonic (FL). In July 2006, Mester was invited to return as music director of The Louisville Orchestra (KY), a position he previously held for twelve years from 1967-1979. Music Director of the Pasadena Symphony for 25 years from 1985-2010, Mester is also Conductor Laureate of the prestigious Aspen Music Festival, which he led as music director for 21 years from 1970-1991. He previously put his unique stamp on the Puerto Rico Festival Casals during the seven years he served as its music director beginning in the late 1970s.

As the artistic director of the National Orchestral Association's New Orchestra Music Project from 1988 to 1992, he became familiar with an impressive number of American composers and had the opportunity to present many new works at Carnegie Hall. He also served as chief conductor of the West Australia Symphony Orchestra in Perth and principal guest conductor of both the Adelaide Symphony and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. From 1998 to 2002, he served as artistic director of the Orquesta Filarmonica de la Ciudad de Mexico in Mexico City. As a guest conductor, Mester has traveled the world to appear with such orchestras as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, Cape Town Symphony Orchestra and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. He commanded worldwide attention when he conducted the opening ceremonies for the Getty Center in Los Angeles in 1997 and subsequently served as artistic director of the Center's first classical music series.

Mester's passion for opera has led him to become a sought-after conductor in opera houses worldwide, including the New York City Opera, the Sydney Opera, the Spoleto Festival and the Washington Opera in Der Rosenkavalier, Cavalleria Rusticana, I Pagliacci, La Boheme, Le Nozze di Figaro, Madama Butterfly, Salome, and The Cunning Little Vixen. He pushed the boundaries of classical music presentation through a series of original "symphonic theatre" productions incorporating classical music, dance and drama with The Pasadena Symphony. In November 2006, he led a staged operatic production of Mozart's Don Giovanni with the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra. The following season, he led a concert performance of Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Saens in Louisville as a joint-production with Louisville Opera. which was so successful that in 2008-09 both organizations collaborated to co-present Tchaikovsky’s Iolanthe. Long an ardent champion of contemporary music, Mester has worked with dozens of gifted composers and has presented at least 75 world-premieres. In 1985, he received Columbia University's prestigious Ditson Conductor's Award for the advancement of American music. Other Ditson Awards recipients include Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy and Leopold Stokowski. In Mexico City, Mester programmed a 40-week festival featuring solely 20th Century Music. This unique season, which devoted a month to each decade of the 20th Century, was hailed as a musical "first."

Jorge Mester’s recent guest-conducting engagements include Breckenridge’s National Repertory Orchestra, Eastern Music Festival, Buffalo Philharmonic, Tucson Symphony, Virginia Symphony, a return to Mexico City’s Orquesta Filarmónica de la Universidad Autónoma de Mexico and Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México (for its celebratory 30th anniversary concert) and the Budapest Concert Orchestra MAV in Hungary. In the US, he has also conducted the orchestras of Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cincinnati, Seattle, Oregon, Milwaukee and Rochester. In Summer 2011, Mester leads the Chautauqua Festival Orchestra in its season opening concerts. During his 12-year tenure as music director of the Louisville Orchestra from 1967 to 1979, Mester made 72 world premiere recordings with the orchestra, a prolific achievement for both conductor and orchestra. Among the composers whose works he recorded are Dmitri Shostakovich, Krzysztof Penderecki, Carlos Chavez, Frank Martin, Henry Cowell, Peter Mennin, Walter Piston, Samuel Barber, George Crumb, Leonardo Balada, and Peter Sculthorpe.Notably, Master's passion for conducting extends from the stage to the classroom. He served as director of the Juilliard School's Conducting Department during the early 1980s, led a series of conducting workshops for the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and has also been a guest conductor at the USC Thornton School of Music.Says Mester, "I love teaching. I hope to pay back the help which Leonard Bernstein, Gregor Piatigorski, William Schuman, and Jean Morel gave me early in my career. I want to help others they way I was helped."

Indeed, he has taught several generations of conductors, including James Conlon, Dennis Russell Davies, Andreas Delfs, JoAnn Falletta, and John Nelson. In addition, he has mentored early in their careers such internationally acclaimed artists as Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Midori, Renee Fleming, Cho-Liang Lin, and Robert McDuffie. During his affiliation with the Aspen Music Festival, Mester helped solidify the organization's reputation for recognizing and nurturing emerging world-class musicians and fostering an exciting synergy among its distinguished faculty, acclaimed guest artists and gifted young musicians. Mester, who is of Hungarian descent, was born and raised in Mexico City and currently resides in Southern California. An accomplished violist, he performed with the Beaux-Arts Quartet for several years before focusing exclusively on conducting.

Press

Jorge Mester named artistic director of Young Musicians Foundation

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
August 06, 2011

Jorge Mester, who for 25 years was music director of the Pasadena Symphony, has been named artistic director of the Young Musicians Foundation and its Debut Orchestra. The 76-year-old Mester (pictured left) will continue in his current positions as Music Director of the Louisville Symphony and Naples (Fla.) Philharmonic, although the Louisville ensemble is embroiled in a major financial struggle at the moment.

Founded in 1955 and based in Los Angeles, the YMF is one of the nation’s top pre-professional training orchestras. Its list of former music directors includes such illustrious names as André Previn, Myung-Whun Chung and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Last week, the its most recent maestro, Case Scaglione, was named an assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, joining Joshua Weilerstein, who was a Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic last year, in that post assisting Music Director Alan Gilbert.

Scaglione’s YMF predecessor, Sean Newhouse, is now assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony. Last season he won praise from audiences and critics alike when he stepped in on two hours notice to replace James Levine and conduct Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 with the BSO.

Thus, Mester (who has served on the YMF Advisory Board for 12 years) takes his new position at a propitious time for the organization. He will help select and mentor the YMF’s next music director (it’s usually a three-year appointment) and is preparing an expanded conductor program where he will serve as a mentor for those people, as well. He will also supervise auditions for the orchestra’s new musicians next month.

It’s a role for which Mester is eminently suited. He headed the conducting program at The Juilliard School in New York City in the 1980s, taught conducting at the USC Thornton School of Music, and was the Aspen Festival’s artistic director for many years (he is now conductor laureate there). Several conductors heading orchestras today, including JoAnn Falletta (Buffalo Philharmonic), count Mester as a mentor. During his time with the Pasadena Symphony, he also introduced to local audiences a number of young artists who have gone on to major careers, perhaps most notably the violinist Midori.

In addition to his shepherding and teaching work, Mester will conduct one of the YMF’s six free concerts during the upcoming season, leading the orchestra in John Adams’ Shaker Loops and Bizet’s Symphony in C Major at 6 p.m. on Nov. 6 at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica.

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