The Score | Pacific-Persian Connections

For many years, California’s Pacific Symphony and Music Director Carl St.Clair have hosted a popular celebration of Nowruz, the festival marking spring and the beginning of the Iranian new year. This year’s event on March 24, in a sold-out Segerstrom Concert Hall, featured Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance, Dvořák’s Carnival Overture, and the four-movement Dance of Spring by Iranian composer Shardad Rohani, who is music director of the Tehran Symphony and shared conducting duties with St.Clair at the concert. The event incorporated traditional Persian dance and music, with performers including vocalist Homayoun Shajarian and Sohrab Pournazeri on the tanbour and kamancheh. The Pacific Symphony’s Nowruz concert, said St.Clair, aims to “embrace Orange County’s rich and diverse communities through contextual programming” and “build and deepen bridges between cultures through art and music.”