The Pacific Symphony and the Laguna Art Museum Host MUSIC MEETS ART Tonight

"Music Meets Art" at Laguna Art Museum when Pacific Symphony Music Director Carl St.Clair joins the museum's Executive Director Malcolm Warner in a stimulating conversation about art and music tonight, March 26, at 7 p.m., with a reception beginning at 6:30 p.m. The event also includes a musical performance by Pacific Symphony musicians, led by violist Cheryl Gates. This concert is part of a series of free and low-cost concerts called, "Freshly Squeezed Music: Pacific Symphony in Your Orange County Neighborhood," created in celebration of St.Clair's 25th anniversary leading the Symphony and championing access to quality music in the community. Tickets for "Music Meets Art" are included with admission to the museum ($7, $5 for students). Reserve tickets at www.lagunaartmuseum.org. See calendar below for remaining Freshly Squeezed Music concerts.

Executive Director Malcolm Warner joined Laguna Art Museum in January 2012. Previously he was deputy director at the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; senior curator of paintings and sculpture at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; and curator of European art at the San Diego Museum of Art. Warner was born in Aldershot (U.K.) and pursued both undergraduate and graduate studies at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. He received his doctorate from the Courtauld in 1985. His doctoral dissertation was on the British Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais. He remains the leading authority on Millais and, as a long-term project, is preparing a catalogue raisonné of the artist's works.

Warner's exhibition The Mirror and the Mask was Apollo magazine's "Exhibition of the Year" in 2007, and Butchers, Dragons, Gods & Skeletons was listed as No. 7 in Time magazine's top 10 exhibitions of 2009. His publications have ranged widely over European art, with an emphasis on art in Britain, from the 18th century to the 20th. They include various articles and essays on Millais and other Victorian painters, an introductory history of portraiture, a guidebook to places in Britain associated with artists, and a catalog of British paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago. He has taught courses in art history at the University of Manchester, the University of Cambridge and the University of Chicago.

Laguna Art Museum is a museum of California art. The museum's exhibitions, catalogs and educational activities illustrate an ongoing examination of California art, which includes historical and contemporary art as well as regionally important influences, such as car, street and surf culture. Through collections, publications and research on the art of California, Laguna Art Museum promotes understanding of the role of California art and artists in the development of the visual arts nationally and internationally.

Music Director Carl St.Clair is one of the longest-tenured conductors of the major American orchestras, and has become widely recognized for his musically distinguished performances, commitment to outstanding educational programs and innovative approaches to programming. Among his creative endeavors with Pacific Symphony are: leading productions of the operas La Bohème, Tosca, La Traviata and Carmen for the new vocal initiative, "Symphonic Voices," which began in 2011-12; pioneering new concert formats and methods of engaging audiences through a series of concerts called "Music Unwound," which was created in 2009-10; and the highly acclaimed American Composers Festival, which began in 2000. In 2006-07, St.Clair led the orchestra's historic move into the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. In March 2006, he took the Symphony on its highly successful European tour.

St.Clair has served as general music director of the Komische Oper in Berlin, and as general music director and chief conductor of the German National Theater and Staatskapelle (GNTS) in Weimar, Germany. He was also principal guest conductor of the Radio Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart. In 2014, St.Clair assumed the position as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Costa Rica. He has appeared with orchestras in Israel, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South America, and summer festivals worldwide. In North America, St.Clair has led many major orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where he served as assistant conductor.

Pacific Symphony is the largest orchestra formed in the U.S. in the last 50 years. The Symphony is recognized as an outstanding ensemble making strides on both the national and international scene, as well as in its own burgeoning cultural community. Presenting more than 100 concerts a year at the Renée and Henry Segerstom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa and Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine as well as a rich array of education and community programs, the Symphony reaches more than 275,000 residents each year-from school children to senior citizens.

To post a comment, you must register and login.