World Premiere of "Through the Lemaire Channel"

BUENA PARK, CA (March 18, 2005) — The Pasadena POPS Orchestra has offered superior entertainment to the arts community since 1987. For the past decade, the Descanso Gardens has been the POPS’ summer home, and listeners often dine at linen-covered tables under the stars. Since Maestra Rachael Worby became music director and principal conductor in 2000, she’s presented guest artists such as Chris Brubeck, Gary Morris, Arianna Zukerman, Jubilant Sykes and Yamaha artist John Tesh.

This past season, in addition to appearances by vocalist Monica Mancini and mezzo-soprano Milena Kitic and a tribute to legendary composer and conductor Franz Waxman, Worby commissioned principal keyboardist and arranger Alan Steinberger to premiere a new work, “Through the Lemaire Channel.” During seven performances, the tone poem for piano and orchestra was lauded by audiences and critics alike: La Cañada Valley Sun called it “lovely and haunting,” and the Beverly Hills Outlook pronounced its theme “so astonishingly beautiful our spirits soared.”

Steinberger performed his ode to the famed stretch of breathtaking Antarctic Ocean on both a Yamaha CFIIIS concert grand and a Yamaha C7 conservatory grand piano, having composed it at home on his Yamaha Disklavier® DC7. Recalling his millennial cruise through the spectacular channel, Steinberger says, “While composing, I tried to paint a picture to convey the beauty of sailing between enormous icebergs with sheer cliffs falling straight to the sea.”

A first-call pianist and composer in the television, film and recording industries, Steinberger's music has graced an award-winning Honda commercial and numerous episodes of King of the Hill, and garnered a Gold record for his Christmas instrumental album, Winterlude. He has played many Yamaha pianos over the years in L.A. studios, and praises their consistent quality: “You have the security of knowing you’ll be playing a great instrument,” he says. “I can sit down and play with virtually no sound check.”

Steinberger’s wife, cellist Mary Anne Steinberger, sits in the curve of the piano for their chamber music rehearsals and performances, which she also did while the couple was shopping for their Yamaha Disklavier. “From that vantage point, she was able to best evaluate fullness of tone and richness of texture of all the pianos we considered,” he notes. “In the course of a typical day in Hollywood I can go from Mendelssohn and Brahms to pounding rhythm section tracks to the most atmospheric film cue. My work covers the broadest range of styles and I am honestly able to pull as much or as little sound as I need from my Disklavier and the Yamaha grand pianos I play in the studios.”

Worby previously served for 12 years as music director of Young Peoples' Concerts at Carnegie Hall, and has been guest conductor for the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Queensland Symphony and the Ojai Festival, among others. Favorably impressed by “Through the Lemaire Channel,” Worby invited Steinberger to write a larger work and perform it at the annual American Music Festival, which she founded six years ago in Cluj, Romania. “I’m composing two additional movements,” says Steinberger, “and hopefully, I’ll be on my way to Romania a year from now to perform the entire Antarctic Suite.”

For more information, visit Yamaha; write Yamaha Corporation of America, Piano Division, P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90622; telephone (714) 522-9011; or e-mail infostation@yamaha.com.