The symphony needs more patrons, ticket buyers and a first-class hall.

In the drab but serviceable setting of the Reseda High School auditorium, the San Fernando Valley Symphony staged a revival Saturday night that its backers hope will begin a new era of prosperity based on a solid business foundation.

By way of review, the orchestra, after 37 consecutive years of often distinguished concert seasons, folded abruptly in the middle of its 1984 season.

Its president said it was no longer possible to manage the orchestra’s growing debt.

But, last summer, a young East Coast couple who had recently moved to Sunland took it as their personal mission to rebuild the Valley’s most venerable cultural institution.

Neither their motives nor their means were mysterious. Lois Johnson, 27, a violinist and student of conducting, has landed jobs playing for several of the Southland’s many community orchestras. But what she really wants to be is a conductor. Because conductors--especially female conductors--are not in great demand, there is no surer way to become one than to start an orchestra.

William Johnson, 31, is a lawyer for a prestigious law firm. He specializes in representing Japanese businesses.

Through his contacts, Johnson introduced the orchestra to a new patron, Japanese businessman Osamu Gotoh, who owns a consulting company called U.S. Gotoh Group. Gotoh agreed to subsidize a tryout concert and, if that went well, up to three more this year. The Johnsons then had the chutzpah to telephone Chevron USA, which chipped in $10,000 toward the $25,000 estimated cost of the concert.

By the 8 p.m. curtain Saturday, about 700 people filled two-thirds of the utilitarian hall whose stiff wooden seats, beige linoleum floors and walls of painted concrete are the best the Valley can do right now for large orchestral performances.

Master of ceremonies Johnny Gunn got the evening off on a warm note of nostalgia.

He said it was exactly 40 years earlier that the San Fernando Valley Symphony gave its first concert under the direction of Ilmari Ronka, once an associate of Arturo Toscanini.

“Maestro Ronka . . . I believe is here tonight,” he said.

An elderly man in a dark suit walked to the stage. He carried a small, white stick.

“Maestro Ronka!” Gunn said, holding out his arms. “He brought with him the very baton he brought with him 40 years ago.”

Then the conductor, dressed in a long black skirt and black sweater, stepped out of the wings, took the baton from the maestro and strode calmly to the podium.

Without taking an initial bow, Johnson turned to the orchestra and began the first piece, a concerto by George Frederick Handel.

She conducted cooly with none of the body language that is the trademark of many a conductor.

The orchestra received a strong applause for a sure, precise rendition.

For the next piece, a panel of three movie screens was lowered under the proscenium, leaving just enough room for the orchestra to be seen beneath it.

To Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” brilliant color photographs of the Appalachian landscape snapped rapidly across the screen. Ohio photographer James Westwater’s choreography of snow-covered trees, rushing streams, old log cabins and farmers at work and at prayer brought a sometimes audible response from the audience.

Next, in a short piece before intermission, Westwater projected photographs of the San Fernando Valley’s most notable landmarks.

At intermission, the audience broke into small groups that suggested two distinct crowds. One was middle-aged to elderly and casual in dress and seemed to represent the symphony’s old core of followers. The other had yuppie overtones, young couples in crisp business clothes. Many of these, it turned out, were friends and associates of William Johnson.

Several said they had driven all the way from the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

After intermission, Johnson led the orchestra in a spirited performance of Beethoven’s Second Symphony.

Then about 50 people gathered on the stage to meet her over coffee and cakes.

Smiling almost bashfully at the attention, she got an immediate review by Maestro Ronka.

“I want to compliment your excellent lady conductor,” he said. “She’s a good musician and excellent with the baton, no doubt about it. I especially liked the way she changed from fortissimo to pianissimo.”

Chevron’s regional vice president, Tom Walker, handed William Johnson a check for $10,000.

“I think, for the future of the San Fernando Valley Symphony, it is important for you to continue your support,” Johnson said.

Aside, Johnson conceded that the symphony needs more than that. It needs more patrons and ticket buyers from the Valley.

And it needs a first-class hall to play in.

For that reason, the only evident disappointment Saturday was the absence of an any emissary from the San Fernando Valley Cultural Foundation, the organization that is raising money to build the Valley a first-class music hall.

That lack of interest can’t help the Cultural Foundation in its own plans.

For, in the world of the corporate donors, a community that cannot sustain a symphony orchestra is easily marked as a community that cannot sustain a proper hall for a symphony to play in.

The Cultural Foundation needs the symphony as much as the symphony needs it.