Today is the 90th birthday of Mexican-born conductor Jorge Mester.

Mester is perhaps best-known to collectors as music director of the Louisville Orchestra, where he served from 1967 to 1979 and oversaw first performances of dozens of works by composers from all over the world. These were released on the much sought-after Louisville First Editions label. Mester conducted 72 recordings of new or neglected music during his first stretch in Louisville. For all I know, some of these may now be available through digital streaming (a number of them have been posted to YouTube), but only a handful of them ever made it to compact disc – which means, for decades, the records have been Holy Grails for classical music lovers with adventurous taste.

Of course, it’s also possible you may recognize Mester for having conducted some P.D.Q. Bach concerts. The man appears to have had his lighter side.

27 years after his departure from Louisville, he returned for a second tenure, while the orchestra sought another music director, with Mester also serving on the search committee.

His other posts have included directorships with the Aspen Symphony Orchestra, the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra, and the Naples Philharmonic in Naples, Florida.

He made his conducting debut with the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico in 1955. In 1998, he became music director of the Mexico City Philharmonic.

He appears to still be active, as music director of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Veracruz, an ensemble he has conducted since its founding in 2014.

Mester studied with Jean Morel at the Juilliard School (he regards Morel as “the greatest conducting teacher of them all”), with Leonard Bernstein at the Berkshire Music Center, and with Albert Wolff. He himself joined Juilliard’s conducting faculty, and for a time was head of the department. He served at Juilliard for the better part of 30 years.

Mester settled in the U.S. and became a naturalized American citizen in 1968.

I very much enjoyed getting to know him through this interview with Bruce Duffie – conducted during a layover at O’Hare Airport. He comes across as much more congenial than his flawed colleague and compatriot Enrique Bátiz, who died on March 30.

https://www.bruceduffie.com/mester.html

By coincidence, he also refers to the conductor John Nelson, one of his students, who died on March 31.

Happy birthday, Jorge Mester! Many happy returns.

From vinyl: Carlos Chávez’s ballet “Horsepower” and Enrique Granados’ symphonic poem “Dante”

Ernest Guiraud’s “The Fantastic Hunt”

Peter Mennin’s Cello Concerto with Janos Starker

An old favorite: Gian Carlo Menotti’s Piano Concerto with Earl Wild

“An Hysteric Return: P.D.Q. Bach at Carnegie Hall”

Mester speaks in 2020