Bravo, Luigi Palumbo!

Luigi Palumbo of Paularino Elementary School

Luigi Palumbo from Paularino Elementary School took first prize in the 5th - 6th Grade Level in this year’s Costa Mesa Library Foundation Student Essay, Photography and Video Competition. The competition was open to both public and private schools, and there were 212 entries. The essay’s theme was “My Favorite Place in Costa Mesa.” Luigi selected the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall with performances by Pacific Symphony as his favorite place. 

Winners, including budding essayist Palumbo, attended an awards dinner on October 23 in the Captain’s Table of Orange Coast College. In addition to his commendation, Segerstrom Center presented Luigi with a congratulatory letter from Center President Terry Dwyer and a certificate for tickets to attend the April 4, 2014 concert by organist Cameron Carpenter co-presented by the Center and Pacific Symphony – packaged in one of the Center’s JERSEY BOYS totes. Congratulations, Young Mr. Palumbo!  


MY FAVORITE PLACE IN COSTA MESA 
by Luigi Palumbo 

Pacific Symphony and Pacific Chorale
at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall

My favorite place in Costa Mesa is the Segerstrom Concert Hall. The Segerstrom Concert Hall is a place where the Pacific Symphony plays their concerts. It looks like a humongous auditorium with soft red chairs everywhere. In the very front, the whole Symphony is playing music. The hall is very big, so the sounds of all the instruments can be heard. The Segerstrom Concert Hall is my favorite place because I like to hear the music of the Symphony. I like to see and hear the string family (violins, violas, cellos and bass) the most. In the hall I listen and watch the Pacific Symphony play in harmony. The music sounds wonderful when the musicians come together and play their instruments. I go there with my school on field trips and I really enjoy it.

The Center in Anne Rice's latest novel

It seems acclaimed best-seller Anne Rice, author of Interview with the Vampire and The Life of Christ series, is a fan of the Center. In her most recent release, Angel Time, Rice included mention of the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, as well as the Pacific Symphony and Leatherby’s Café Rouge. The book’s central character, assassin Toby O’Dare, muses in this excerpt:

Often, undisguised, I drove over to nearby Costa Mesa to hear the Pacific Symphony. I liked it, the contrast, moving from the stucco arches and rusted bells of the Inn to the immense Plexiglas miracle of the Segerstrom Concert Hall, with the pretty Cafe Rouge on the first floor.

In a personal email to the Center, Rice called the Concert Hall “gorgeous ... a beautiful and special place,” adding that she often incorporates personal experiences into her novels. Said Rice:

It was natural for me to have my hero in this new novel visit the hall. I was so taken with the performance of [the Pacific Symphony’s] The Rite of Spring that I wrote it into the book, and expanded on it fictionally, having the hero hear the composition early in his life, and then again at the Hall.

Thank you for your praise, Ms. Rice. We look forward to the next book.