Pacific Symphony has announced the appointment of Alexander Shelley as the orchestra’s third music director, beginning in the 2026–2027 season for an initial five-year term. Shelley will serve as music director designate the season before.
Named after a lengthy search, Shelley succeeds Carl St. Clair, who has led the orchestra for more than three decades and who will become music director laureate in 2025–2026.
Arthur Ong, chair of the orchestra’s board, said: “Alexander’s appointment marks the beginning of a new chapter for Pacific Symphony, building on the legacy of international recognition and local community engagement that Carl has firmly established over the past 35 years.”
St. Clair’s tenure is the longest for an American-born music director of a major U.S. orchestra. Shelley, 45 and set to become only the third-ever artistic leader in Pacific Symphony’s history, will bring international experience to Orange County.
“I am filled with excitement about leading Pacific Symphony, a versatile, vibrant organization that has enmeshed itself so deeply in the culture, community, and imagination of Southern California,” said Shelley, who is currently music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada, and principal associate conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, both positions he’s held since 2015.
Born in London to well-known concert pianists Howard Shelley and Hilary Macnamara, the future music director began playing the piano as a toddler, later learning the cello. Gaining attention when he was unanimously awarded first prize at the 2005 Leeds Conductors’ Competition, he has seen his career on the podium thrive ever since.
A passionate advocate for new music and for the role of music in wider society, Shelley has led 40 major world premieres and numerous groundbreaking projects, as well as highly praised cycles of symphonies by Beethoven, Brahms, and Robert Schumann.
Founded in 1978, Pacific Symphony is the resident orchestra of Orange County’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts. The group is the largest orchestra formed in the U.S. in the last 50 years and has grown to be recognized as an outstanding ensemble on both national and international stages.
