In OC, Shelley Weaves Magic with Scheherazade
/By Truman C. Wang
10/21/2025
Photo credit: Doug Gifford
Alexander Shelley continues to demonstrate why Pacific Symphony made the right choice for its next Music Director. Following his stunning inaugural concert last May – in which I noted a "mesmerizing new 'Pacific Symphony sound” in Beethoven's Emperor Concerto – the British-Canadian maestro returned this weekend with an enchanting program that spanned from modern American sparkle to timeless Arabian nights. I attended the Saturday, October 18 concert.
Jessie Montgomery's Starburst opened the evening with cosmic shimmer and vibrant energy, setting the tone for a journey through diverse musical landscape – its colorful orchestration anticipated that of the Russian work. The real revelation came with Arturo Márquez's Concerto for Guitar: Mystical and Profane, featuring the acclaimed Spanish guitarist Pablo Sainz-Villegas. In this work, Villegas celebrated the guitar more as a singing instrument than a virtuoso one, imparting every note and phrase with lyrical grace and, in the mystical second movement scored for clarinet, church bell and plucked guitar chords, a sense of deep calm. He saved his considerable virtuosic chops for the encore – "Gran Jota" by Francisco Tárrega.
After intermission, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade transported the Segerstrom Concert Hall into the world of 1,001 Nights. Shelley's gift for drawing refined orchestral colors – those "gently shimmering, singing" strings and "mellow" horns that so impressed in May – served the lush Russian score magnificently. From the heaving seas of Sinbad's ship to the exotic Festival at Baghdad, the orchestra painted each tale with dazzling instrumental colors and narrative force. Concertmaster Dennis Kim’s solo playing of the Scheherazade theme was meltingly beautiful.
With Shelley's precise, energetic conducting style and his passion for the music (evidenced in his delightful musical analysis speech), Pacific Symphony's bold new era is already bearing fruit. The magic is unmistakable.
Truman C. Wang is Editor-in-Chief of Classical Voice, whose articles have appeared in the Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, other Southern California publications, as well as the Hawaiian Chinese Daily. He studied Integrative Biology and Music at U.C. Berkeley.