West Valley Symphony to Debut Saturday : Orchestra Gets New Name, Aspires to Become Professional

An amateur San Fernando Valley orchestra that has played six years, primarily for its own members’ pleasure, will open a four-concert season Saturday in Canoga Park with a new name and a desire to rise to professional rank, according to its music director.

The concert, in the Sutter Junior High School Auditorium, will mark the debut of the West Valley Symphony, an offshoot of the Van Nuys Civic Orchestra, said James Domine, music director of both groups.

Domine, who founded the Van Nuys Civic Orchestra largely as a vehicle for musicians to perform their own compositions and play for fun, said he has received financial backing from the Canoga Park Rotary Club and the Winnetka Chamber of Commerce to establish a professional orchestra in the West Valley in the hope of cultivating an audience for classical music there.

“What we’re trying to do in the Valley is build an audience that hasn’t existed before,” Domine said.

The Van Nuys Civic Orchestra, which performs most of its concerts at Van Nuys High School, will continue to exist in its present form, Domine said.

The difference between the two, Domine hopes, will be that the West Valley Symphony will draw more heavily on professionals as money permits.

“The goal of the orchestra within a year or two is to get it completely on a professional level,” Domine said. “The baby has to walk before it can run. We’re at the walking stage right now.”

Domine, owner of a print shop in Canoga Park, said he trained as a composer and conductor of serious music at USC, then felt a letdown when college ended and he found no avenues to use his trade.

He said he and a few colleagues thought: “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had an orchestra to play some of the music we are composing?”

They started playing and soon began to collect other amateur musicians, students and a few union musicians.

Eventually, the group won grants from the City of Los Angeles totaling $3,750 and began to receive private donations as well, Domine said.

“We’ve grown beyond being a laboratory for composers,” Domine said. “That’s not our mission any more.”

The mission now, he said, “is to perform symphonic music in the Valley on the highest level of musicianship.”

Domine said the 50-piece orchestra will consist of a selection of the best musicians from the Van Nuys Civic Orchestra along with others who only play professionally.

The West Valley Symphony’s debut Saturday will be the second this year of an orchestra attempting to bring professional-quality symphonic music to the Valley.

In January, the San Fernando Valley Symphony Assn. revived the Valley’s oldest orchestra with a concert at the Reseda High School auditorium.

Under new leadership after a lapse of nearly two years, the Symphony Assn. raised the money to hire an orchestra composed entirely of professionals. The group is expected to announce several more concerts soon.

Domine said the new West Valley Symphony has three more concerts scheduled this year.

It will perform March 22 at Verdugo Hills High School in a program that will be broadcast in the Valley on cable TV. Other performances are April 20 at Sutter Junior High and July 14 at Pierce College.

The April concert will feature music by Valley composers. The orchestra will play Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in July.

Saturday’s program will consist of Haydn’s Symphony No. 104, “London,” Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 and a musical setting of the Gettysburg Address by Ted Twitchell, a contemporary Los Angeles composer. Soloists will be pianist Judith Rado and baritone Ralph Cato.

The concert will begin at 8 p.m. in the Sutter Junior High School auditorium, 7330 Winnetka Ave. Admission is free.