SOCIETY ZEROS IN ON CENTER : Philharmonic Hopes to Bring Orchestras to New Arts Facility

If there’s any local arts organization closely identified with big-name touring orchestras, it’s the Orange County Philharmonic Society.

After all, the organization--the county’s premier classical impresario for nearly 23 years--has brought not only the Los Angeles Philharmonic to Orange County, but also the Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic.

Up to now, the Costa Mesa-headquartered organization has had to make do with old local auditoriums, dreaming of the day when its attractions could play in a large hall built especially for symphonic concerts.

Dream no more.

The Orange County Philharmonic Society, its officials maintain, is expected to be a principal presenter of touring orchestras at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, once that complex’s 3,000-seat multipurpose theater opens in the fall of 1986.

“We have no doubt this will be the case. We have not yet sat down and signed anything; we still have to really negotiate. But everything they (Center officials) have said points to us as the major presenter of symphony,” said Louis Knobbe, president of the Philharmonic Society board, in a recent interview.

As far as the society board is concerned, that’s enough assurance to generate the biggest expansion plans in the organization’s history, including an all-out fund drive for underwriting concerts at the Center.

In the beginning, the Philharmonic Society--founded in 1954--did not import orchestras. It had its very own: the Orange County Philharmonic Orchestra, led by Frieda Belinfante, an internationally known conductor, and composed of musicians from the major Hollywood studios.

Seven years later, however, the orchestra folded, struck by erratic attendance, a shrinking pool of Hollywood musicians, mounting rehearsal and other costs--and the coming of the Los Angeles Philharmonic to Orange County.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic had wanted to play Orange County for some time as part of its expanded Southern California touring program. And Orange County Philharmonic Society officials believed that the chance to present a big-league orchestra was too good to resist.

After its 1962 debut (in a concert conducted by Zubin Mehta in the Orange Coast College auditorium), the Los Angeles Philharmonic became a regular Orange County visitor, joined by other prominent ensembles, including the Pittsburgh Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, London Symphony and San Francisco Symphony.

There were, however, local arts advocates who complained about the Philharmonic Society’s “import syndrome.” They said the program was undercutting crucially needed support for establishing another Orange County orchestra. They argued this was a key factor in the demise of the Symphony Orchestra of Orange County in 1969. Although the Fullerton-based orchestra (conducted first by Eugene Ober and then by Daniel Lewis) won critical respect over its eight years, it failed to win countywide fiscal backing.

But Philharmonic Society officers at the time said such blame-pointing was unjust. Instead, they suggested that the formation of a county orchestra was still a premature venture. They cited the box office successes of their own concerts as evidence that local audiences apparently preferred the major touring orchestras.

In fact, this year’s audiences are the best yet, society officials report: an overall average attendance of 84% (of auditorium capacity), and a subscription membership that now reaches 3,200. In the 1984-85 schedule are nine concerts by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and three by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, plus single appearances by the San Francisco Symphony and Slovenian Symphony Orchestra of Yugoslavia.

The organization’s Music for Youth Program--a highly popular outreach that includes school visits by symphonic and choral troupes and by music history specialists, and the yearly Melodyland concerts with Henry Brandon and the California Symphony--are expected to reach 300,000 students this year, the highest yet.

Money is altogether another matter. Costs of presenting concerts, officials said, have increased markedly each year ($370,000, nearly half of this year’s budget, is for paying orchestras and soloists).

Until now, the Philharmonic Society has relied mostly on individual donors and on fashion shows, dances and other benefits put on by the 1,700-member women’s volunteer corps.

There are also grants from such corporate backers as the Fluor, Hoag and Steele foundations and Avco Financial Services.

It’s all been rather low-keyed. But now, officials said, the society will become a more aggressive fund-raiser, seeking grants for the first time from the California Arts Council and the federal National Endowment for the Arts and, especially, expanding the pursuit of corporate donors.

This was the reason for hiring a general manager, the first full-time paid staff administrator in the society’s history. That post has been held since November by Erich Vollmer, the former executive director of the Young Musicians Foundation in Los Angeles and a one-time arts administrator at USC. (Robert Elias, the first general manager, appointed in late 1983, quit last September to take the executive director’s post with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.)

As society officials tell it, the failure of an earlier corporate campaign, a $400,000 drive launched with much fanfare in 1982, was due in part to the absence of a full-time professional administrator.

In the face of greater-than-ever fund-raising competition from other local arts organizations--especially from the Orange County Performing Arts Center--the society seeks corporate support for at least 25% of its annual budget.

Corporate support is now 14%, compared with 41% from ticket revenues, 23% from individual donors and 22% from benefits. This will mean, Vollmer said, raising at least $150,000 each year in grants from firms or foundations (the Irvine Co., McDonnell Douglas Corp. and Security Pacific Foundation are recent donors).

At the same time, the number of Philharmonic Society concerts next season and other programs may be cut under an overall fiscal revamping. Due to previous budgets that “had expanded too fast,” Vollmer explained, the total may be cut from $800,000 this year to about $600,000 in 1985-86. Instead of the previously projected 14 concerts, the 1985-86 season may be down to 12. (The schedule, again centered on the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is expected to include the Dresden Philharmonic from East Germany and Vienna-based Philharmonica Hungarica.)

But it will be business as usual at the 1,600-seat Santa Ana Auditorium, the Philharmonic Society’s concert home since 1976.

However, although the high school hall at the edge of Santa Ana’s old downtown sector is known for good acoustics, Philharmonic Society officials contend that the neighborhood’s rundown image still keeps many concert-goers away. Also, they point out, most major-league orchestras, already reluctant to tour extensively because of spiraling costs, will not perform in Orange County unless it’s in a “world class” concert hall.

“The costs for touring today are enormous. You’re talking as much as $60,000 per concert for the super-orchestras alone,” said board president Knobbe. “But when the (Orange County) Center comes aboard, this regional circuit--the Los Angeles Music Center and the others included--will draw more outstanding groups, including many that have never been out here.”

(In addition to orchestras, the Center also is seeking such attractions as the New York City Opera Co., American Ballet Theatre and major musical productions.)

Executives for the Center and Los Angeles Philharmonic said an agreement was still being negotiated to encompass concerts for the “grand opening galas”--to be presented by the Center itself--and for the remainder of the season. As of early this week, the Center had not announced entering into negotiations with any other big-name orchestra.

Still, the Orange County Philharmonic Society insists that it is the logical choice to be named presenter of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and other touring orchestras at the Center. (Other attractions the society proposes to present in 1986-87 include the Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestra National de France of Paris and Johann Strauss Orchestra of Vienna.)

“We’ve been doing it for nearly 25 years. We took on the task when there was a vacuum in this county for great music,” Knobbe said .

Mindful of the earlier disputes over local orchestra ventures, the Philharmonic Society also talks more than ever of closing the local ranks. One plan, Knobbe said, is to again present concerts by the Orange County Pacific Symphony, the county’s current “home orchestra.” (Another potential Center participant, the Fullerton-based orchestra has performed only once--in 1982--under society auspices.)

Added Knobbe: “This has always been our mission with the concerts and educational programs--that is, to be one of the major (arts) catalysts here, to help raise the cultural level of this county.”

Next: Pacific Chorale sets its sights on the Center’s 1986-87 season.