Press Release
February 13, 2008
Valerie Scher and Jung-Ho Pak Team Up "For the Love or Music"

In partnership with the Rancho Santa Fe Community Center, the San Diego Chamber Orchestra held their first program in the series, "For the Love of Music," at The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe on Tuesday, February 12, to an enthusiastic audience.

Hosted by Jung-Ho Pak, Artistic Director of the San Diego Chamber Orchestra, the series is modeled after the format of the Bravo TV show, "Inside the Actors' Studio." The guest for the first of these "talk show" programs was Valerie Scher, San Diego Union-Tribune's Classical Music Critic.

Born in Chicago, she received a Bachelor's degree in Performance Piano and a Master's degree in Music History at Northwestern University. After completing course work for a Ph.D. in Music History, Valerie wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She talked about the influence that Tom Willis, a well-known Music Critic in Chicago had on her as a student, and how she eventually helped him teach music criticism classes.

Arriving with her husband, David Elliott, in San Diego in 1984, she became the Music and Dance Critic at The San Diego Tribune. After the merger of The Tribune and Union in 1992, she became the Classical Music Critic, a position she has held since.

The audience was obviously fascinated as the articulate Ms. Scher described what it's like to be a music critic in today's world of electronic media when "everyone is a critic," posting opinions on the Internet through blogs. "There is some good in that.that sense of participation," she said. She believes that there are three components that a music critic must combine into a good review: 1) reporting (who, what where), 2) opinion (filtering in a way that readers will find something meaningful, and 3) entertainment.

Although she acknowledged that most newspapers are struggling today, she said, "I have always believed that newspapers are the best entertainment for the money." Although she reads news both online and in print, she stated that her day doesn't start right until she has read a newspaper with her cup of coffee.

As she and Maestro Pak bantered back and forth with questions and answers, it became clear that they share many of the same philosophies about the arts. Their comments reflected a real love for the arts and a belief that the arts must provide "a human interactive experience." At the request of Pak, Ms. Sher brought some CDs that she "would want to have access to on a deserted island," and a lively discussion ensued about her choices of CDs. They ranged from Mahler's Symphony No. 4 to the "big band" sound to Slim Whitman's Indian Love Call. She played a Renaissance recorder piece and talked about how she and her son, now 16, took recorder lessons together for two years.

After answering very interesting questions from the audience, Pak and Scher agreed that "music is a transformational experience." As Ms. Sher stated, "When you're listening to beautiful music, there is no other moment but that moment in time."

The next program in the series is scheduled for April 8 from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon at The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe. Jung-Ho Pak will host and the guest will be violinist Jennifer Frautschi.

According to the Boston Herald, "The fabulous Frautschi is one of our most fully gifted musical artists, and she filled the long, longing phrases.with dazzling intensity."

Sponsors of this series are The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe and Morgan Stanley.