BRITAIN’S BRYARS SEEKS ACCEPTANCE IN U.S.

Gavin Bryars is following an old musical tradition--the Grass-is-Always-Greener approach--to public recognition. Beethoven left home in search of acceptance. So did Chopin. So did Stravinsky.

For the London-based composer, in town for his local debut tonight, the motivation for hitting the road is simple and familiar: He is weary of being ignored.

Bryars, 43, has been shunned by what he calls “remarkably conservative” orchestras: “It’s a situation peculiar only to London. Every week it’s Tchaikovsky and Brahms, and little else.”

Even contemporary music audiences seem to prefer (again, Bryars’ words) such “establishment composers” as Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwhistle.

Buoyed by his stunning success with French opera audiences two years ago, Bryars realized that fame and relative fortune might be found elsewhere.

Now, he has turned his attention to the United States.

Bryars got his first glimpse of the new-music audience here in the mid-’70s, when he toured with Steve Reich.

The contemporary scene “is getting nicely organized in your country,” the tall, balding composer said. “That New Music America festival was quite exciting.”

Bryars is visiting the West Coast briefly, alone, to establish contacts and host what he terms “a presentation” of his music tonight at the Center for Yoga.

In 18 months, he will make a U.S. tour with his six-member ensemble. Will Americans take to his often witty, occasionally jazzy, sometimes dreamily minimalist work? Bryars seems optimistic.

“A lot of music is tonal again,” he said. One factor in the rebirth of tonality has been the revival of full-scale opera: “I think opera audiences were having trouble with all the atonal works they had to face.”

Central to this movement has been Robert Wilson--a man with whom Bryars has maintained a close association since 1981. Their collaborations include “Medea,” mounted (to wide acclaim) by the Lyon and Paris Opera companies in 1984, “The Golden Window”and “the CIVIL warS.”

The latter was due for its long-delayed first complete performance in Austin, Tex., this year, including Bryars’ “French Section.” But those plans--like the Los Angeles staging timed to the ’84 Olympics--fell through.

“I suppose the work has a jinx on it,” Bryars said.

Confessing a fondness for working with Wilson, Bryars nonetheless names John Cage as his most important influence.

After his stint here with Cage in 1968, Bryars returned home to teach at Portsmouth--where he founded that legendary nose-thumbing band of the ‘70s, the Portsmouth Sinfonia. The group was made up of amateurs trying to play the classics, but murdering them in hilarious cacophony.

Bryars has fond memories of those days. “It was quite lively for a time. I had been into Cage along with some of my jazz friends (Bryars’ main instrument is the double bass). And there was another camp into Stockhausen.

“All of a sudden, along came Cornelius Cardew, who’d worked with Cage and Stockhausen.”

The music scene revolved around Cardew, until his death in 1981. “It was quite a blow,” Bryars said. “We had to start over.

“But things are picking up now. From the European perspective, we’re already looked upon as an important force.” Bryars’ reported position at the top of the English new-music movement is supported by the Major Event status given “Medea” by French audiences.

“I think we’re slowly finding our own voice,” he said.