THE MANY FACETS OF YMF’S RICHMAN

The conductor of the first work on the first concert of the Gold Medal series--which presents young artists--at Ambassador Auditorium Monday night will be, appropriately enough, a 20-year-old musician of multiple gifts.

Leading the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra in the overture to Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” will be Lucas Richman, recipient of the 1984 conductor-in-training grant from YMF.

“I am called assistant conductor of YMF,” Richman acknowledges, “but it’s not like being an assistant, since there is no main conductor.” Richman works directly under YMF Music Director Lalo Schifrin, the veteran composer.

“I have a lot of responsibilities in this job,” Richman says. “I sit in on all the auditions. I choose the repertory. I run sectional rehearsals.”

Richman, who graduated from UCLA in June, is a musician of many accomplishments.

“I actually took a major in violin performance--my teacher was Alexander Treger--but spent a lot of time in both conducting and composition,” Richman says.

Being a pianist, too, Richman also worked as staff accompanist in musical theater. And, though he lists among his conducting teachers all of the famous names at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute from 1982 to 1984, including that of Leonard Bernstein--”pedestal time,” Richman intones in his best Valley twang--he still admits, “As a conductor, my main influence has been John Hall,” the UCLA faculty member who drafted the young Californian into musical theater when the conductor-to-be was only 17.

Nelson Nirenberg, the young Brazilian conductor and founder of his own American Chamber Symphony, is guest conductor on the YMF podium at this event. He will lead Beethoven’s G-major Piano Concerto (with Daniel Shapiro as soloist), the Prelude to Villa-Lobos’ “Bachianas Brasileiras” No. 4, and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony.

Subsequent series events offer pianists Stephen Hough (Jan. 28), Steven Mayer (Feb. 4), James Barbagallo (March 18) and Mitsuko Uchida (April 22); the Colorado String Quartet (March 4); violinists Chantal Juillet (April 15) and Sherry Kloss (May 20); singers Ben Holt (Jan. 21), Thomas Hampson (Feb. 25) and Kaaren Erickson (June 10); the USC Symphony (Feb. 11), and American Youth Symphony (May 6). COMPOSERS: Sir Michael Tippett will be honored, barely two weeks after the fact, for his 80th birthday by a performance in Japan America Theatre Monday night. The performers: members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s New Music Group, plus composer/conductor Tippett, the Daria String Quartet and tenor Thomas Randle. The program: the String Quartet No. 1; the world premiere of the Piano Sonata No. 4; the Sonata for four horns, and “Songs for Dov.” . . . Four concert performances and two other events mark the weeklong tribute to Bay Area composer Andrew Imbrie scheduled by the San Francisco Symphony and other organizations, Jan. 21-27. Centerpiece of the tribute is three S.F. Symphony performances (Jan. 24-26) at which will be given the world premiere of Imbrie’s Requiem, commissioned by the symphony association. In addition, there will be a lecture by the composer (Jan. 21); an open rehearsal of the “Masquerade” movement from the Symphony No. 1 by the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (Jan. 26), and a chamber music concert (Jan. 27). AND OTHER MUSICIANS: Conductor Dennis Russell Davies has signed a new contract with the summertime Cabrillo Festival in Aptos, Calif., that will allow him to continue as festival director through 1988. More interesting, perhaps, is the provision of the new contract that moves the annual festival from August to July, beginning in 1986, to allow Davies to serve concurrently as director of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, where he will be in residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra. . . . Returning to Ambassador Auditorium this week are two familiar musicians: flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal (Wednesday at 8 p.m.) and pianist Andre Watts (next Sunday at 8 p.m.). . . . New to the Southland, a vocal septet, the San Francisco Opera Center Singers (Nikki Li Hartliep, Cheryl Parrish, Linde Caple, Daniel Harper, James Busterud, David Malis and Jacob Will), performs in Beckman Auditorium at Caltech in Pasadena Saturday night at 8.