The Score: A One-on-One Conservation Series with Legendary Composers/Arrangers

Inaugural Program Features Gerald Wilson

Sunday, November 20th, at 3pm Price: $25 conversation and performance; $10 performance only South Pasadena Music Center and Conservatory 1509 Mission Street, South Pasadena, 91030 Information: 323-222-8334 www.yvettedevereaux.com

The Score is presented in conjunction with the South Pasadena Music Center & Conservatory, where Dr. Devereaux where she is a Master teacher and directs the strings program. Light refreshments will be provided and a performance will follow the discussion.

Series creator Dr. Yvette Devereaux has been an active performer, conductor and educator for over two decades. Her wide-ranging experience includes conducting orchestras and ensembles world-wide, including guest conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chapman University Orchestra in tour of China and was the first woman to hold the position of Music Director/Conductor of the Southeast Community Symphony. Explaining her motivation for starting the series, Dr. Devereaux explains “I’ve always wanted to share the remarkable genius of some the masterworks I’ve had to interpret in my conducting. I believe that music listen experience can be greatly enhanced an deepened with the knowledge of what goes into not only composing work of music, but creative choices involved in bringing to life by arranging it for and orchestra or Jazz ensemble.”

Mission Street So. Pasadena, CA 91030

"The Score" is about getting 'inside' a composer's head and allowing the public a rare glimpse of the process of insight and creativity undertaken by the composer/arranger and of the pattern of genius and originality brought forth in the composer/arranger's completed works. This series will take place twice each year and will consist in the host conductor (or perhaps another composer/arranger) posing questions to and engaging in dialogue with the celebrity composer/arranger about a particularly vital and important score while simultaneously viewing the score and listening to a recording or a live rendition of the music. 'The Score' will take place in venues where the primary function is the enriching of the lives of young people and adults through music education and through the ready availability of performance and creative spaces for people of any race, creed, and/or level of artistry and artistic ability.

'The Score' series has been conceived by the Conductor/Violinist, Dr.Yvette M. Devereaux. While performing over the years in musical ensembles, bands, orchestras, and recording sessions with and while listening and playing the music of the leading composers/arrangers of our time, Dr. Devereaux' admiration for the greatness of these masters has grown ever the stronger. And as a Conductor and as a Violinist, a question would always and persistently come to Ms. Devereaux: "how did you come up with such a masterful piece of music?" But in these musical and performing contexts she would be the only person to hear the remarkable and amazing replies, answers, and stories coming from inspired geniuses such as the late Ray Ellis (arranger for Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, etc), the late Teddy Edwards Sr, the late Luciano Berio, and many others. Consequently, the immediate and powerful impetus for this series should now be evident. 'The Score' seeks to document greatness on the spot, here and now, now or never! After death isn't quite The Story! But documenting greatness during life is The Story! This kind of profound and animating respect for musical mastery and musical genius and an accompanying desire to document and make available to our contemporaneity and to our posterity knowledge about musical greatness together constitute a vivid passion, concern, and mission on the part of Yvette Devereaux. She hopes to contribute and offer to all subsequent generations as well as to contemporary and subsequent authors, researchers, and scholars a store of information and learning materials regarding the great masters of music she knows and has known.