John Alexander Returns to the Podium with the Pacific Chorale

Paul Hodgins
May 20
5 min read

After insisting his 2017 retirement performance would be his last, the longtime music director comes back for a concert filled with works that hold profound personal meaning.

John Alexander, conducting at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. Photo courtesy of Pacific Chorale

John Alexander dedicated over four decades to transforming Pacific Chorale into one of the nation's premier symphonic choirs. As artistic director and conductor from 1972 to 2017, Alexander's tenure was characterized by unparalleled artistic growth, transforming the Orange County-based ensemble from a local group into a nationally recognized powerhouse.

Alexander’s vision brought the Pacific Chorale into a new era, characterized by high-profile collaborations with organizations like the Pacific Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. During his 45-year tenure, which is among the longest among American choral conductors, he led the ensemble in hundreds of performances across 27 countries, leading many tours that elevated the group’s international profile.

Through masterful performances, innovative programming and an unwavering commitment to both classical masterworks and contemporary repertoire, the chorale expanded significantly, establishing its role as the professional resident choir at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Alexander also founded the John Alexander Singers, a professional chamber choir that specializes in modern and early music.

On Saturday, Alexander will conduct the chorale in a special concert, “A Serenade to Music,” that features works that hold special meaning for him. We talked to Alexander about the program he has planned.

John Alexander. Photo courtesy of Pacific Chorale

Culture OC: Tell us a bit about how this concert came about.

John Alexander: When they asked me to do this, I was not planning to go back to the podium. When I retired in 2017, I said, “This is going to be my last performance.” I was Rob's mentor and teacher. (Robert Istad is the choir‘s current music director and conductor.) And I wanted to get out of his way and let him do his thing. I thought, “They don't need and he doesn't need the old conductor in there telling him what to do.”

COC: So what changed your mind?

JA: When they invited me to come back, I at first said, no, and then I thought about it, and they made a convincing argument that it would be a really good thing for me to do. And I'm fortunate at 81 to be in very good health still. And so I finally said, “Yeah, I think I wanna do this.” Rob told me, “John, you can pick anything you want to do.” So I told him, “Well, I want to do the Berlioz Requiem” (laughs).

COC: That’s a huge work!

JA: It only requires about 400 performers. I knew it would not fly. So I made the decision not to pick a single work, but to look back through my history at the composers I love the most, and works that I love to do, and put together a program of smaller works. But the other element in choosing this program was that I wanted to pick things that I knew our audience also loved. So it's not just what I loved, but works where I got a really favorable response from the audience.

COC: Is there an overarching theme to the concert?

JA: I wanted to take a theme of how music affects our lives and the importance of having music in our lives. So most of the texts, and the works themselves, deal with that subject in many different ways and in many different styles. It's four centuries of music I have here.

John Alexander conducts the Pacific Chorale and Pacific Symphony. Photo courtesy of Pacific Chorale

COC: Tell us about choosing the two Bruckner works. I know you’re a big fan.

JA: Bruckner is one of my favorite composers. If you ask me who my favorite Austrian composers are, I'd put Mozart first and Bruckner second. I've been a fan all of my life. And these two pieces are my two favorite Bruckner pieces. The “Ave Maria” motet is to me a masterpiece, and the Psalm 150 was the last choral orchestra piece he wrote. In only eight minutes what he does is just amazing. The way he goes through every verse with the different instruments, creating completely new colors, and the violin solo verse and the soprano solo verse are just unbelievably moving.

COC: Brahms’ “Schicksalslied” is another deeply moving work.

JA: It’s sometimes called “The Little Requiem.” He had been writing the Requiem for three years when he took on this project. And he was really taken by this poem. I think that after dealing with the subject of death and trying to make a positive statement for those of us that are living, he read this poem and it had to hit home with him because it starts out talking about the beauty of the life of the gods is, and how terrible are the lives of mortals who have to face death.

COC: Lily Boulanger is widely respected but not widely known. Tell us more about this work by the sister of famed composition teacher Nadia Boulanger.

JA: It was published right after her death. She died when she was 25 years old. What she accomplished, as sickly as she was, is amazing. I mean, she was really a single woman who was bedridden, but she was already studying composition when she was 7 years old. When I was researching the piece, when I first did it way back in my youth, I read that it was originally a choral-orchestral piece, but I could never find any evidence of a score. Then a young man that served as an artistic assistant for a number of years helped me out. He was a very gifted musicologist. I was planning a concert of all French music, and I was doing a lot of Boulanger. He was going to Paris, so he went and he found the handwritten score, and so he made a performance edition. So I managed to actually do the premier performance. To be able to bring this piece to life meant a lot to me. And so that's the reason it's back on this program.

COC: Heggie’s piece deals with Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, correct?

JA: The amazing thing about this piece is that it goes through the whole experience. Jake’s a very dramatic composer. So you have the hurricane and all of its terror for the first half, and then you get to Bruce Springsteen's concert. (Bruce Springsteen delivered a legendary and cathartic performance with the Seeger Sessions Band at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on April 30, 2006, eight months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.) And suddenly the whole thing changes. And then there’s this uplifting part about going to the future, looking forward to the future. I think it’s the perfect way to end the concert – with hope.