HOLLYWOOD BOWL SPRUCES UP FOR 65TH

As every summer approaches, new wrinkles give character to the ongoing history of Hollywood Bowl. The summer of 1986--the 65th season of outdoor concerts in the landmark amphitheater--will offer two cosmetic changes and the promise of expansion.

Last year, through the good offices (that’s a pun) of County Supervisor Edmund Edelman, in whose Third District the Bowl sits, the Hollywood Bowl Museum was opened.

This year, in addition to new wooden benches in the seating sections above the boxes, supervisor Edelman has arranged additional picnic facilities--including 125 new picnic tables, distributed throughout the areas designated for outdoor eating--around the park, which is owned and run by the county.

And now, having ensured that there will be more happy picnickers on the Bowl grounds, Edelman has turned his interest to the educational side of Bowl activities. In particular, one of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s educational arms (it has several): the Philharmonic Institute.

With the recent condemnation--after residents of the neighborhood successfully blocked a proposed commercial development--of a parcel of land adjacent to the 116-acre Bowl site, Edelman sees the acquisition of this property as the next step in making the Bowl a year-round community resource.

The nearly one-acre parcel and the so-called Highland-Camrose bungalows “are a resource we want to add to our park facilities,” Edelman explains.

“We are working with both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and with the California State University system on developing plans for the area.”

Some of the projected uses of the site now under discussion include “rehearsal rooms, concerts--and more picnic facilities,” he points out. Eventually, Edelman thinks, the surrounding 1.6-acre site could be put to use by the Philharmonic Institute, the summertime orchestral training program sponsored by the Philharmonic.

According to Leni Isaacs Boorstin, public affairs manager for the Philharmonic, the proposed facilities might eventually become a winter-season home for off-site musical activities by the Philharmonic and Cal State Northridge (now the summer home of the Philharmonic Institute).

“We are trying to bring the greatest use to this marvelous county resource,” says Edelman, estimating the total cost for the proposed acquisition at $550,000.

“Right now, 700,000 people attend the Bowl every summer. We want to give them the fullest possible experience from their visits. That experience should include year-round use of the facility.”

CATALINA ISLAND: An orgy of chamber music concerts--18 performances of 13 different programs--is the offering of Chamber Music in Historic Sites at its three-day Catalina Festival of Chamber Music, June 6-8. Eight separate sites will host the concerts, to be performed by the 16 members of the Da Camera Players (led by pianist Delores Stevens).

At the landmark Casino in Avalon, on three consecutive evenings, three special events will take place: a showing of Charlie Chaplin’s silent film, “Easy Street” (1917), with musical accompaniment from the resident Page organ; a dinner-dance concert, and the closing concert of the weekend, a program of Saint-Saens’ Septet, the String Quintet of Dvorak and the Nonet by Ludwig Spohr.

Other concert locations on the island include the Palms Ballroom, Wrigley Memorial Gardens, Avalon Community Church, the Inn on Mt. Ada, Avalon School and the Bird Park. Among the performers will be violinists Kathleen Lenski and Ralph Morrison, violist Michael Nowak, cellist David Speltz, bassist Susan Ranney, flutists David Shostac and Janet Ketchum, clarinetist David Shifrin, oboist Tom Boyd, bassoonist Kenneth Munday, harpist Susan Allen, hornist James Thatcher, trumpeters Mario Guarneri and Roy Poper and trombonists Miles Anderson and Tom Johnson.

For information: (213) 747-9085.

DEPARTURES: In Los Angeles, Sylvia Kunin, founder (in 1955) of Young Musicians Foundation, has severed her ties with that organization to pursue other interests. Kunin says that now her first priority is Musical Encounter, the 14-year-old program--and television and videotape series--she began in Hawaii, of bringing together young audiences and young performing musicians. . . . After 10 seasons, Christian Badea, music director of the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, and the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, S.C., will leave those posts at the end of the 1986 season. The 36-year-old, Romanian-born conductor cited increased international activity and the signing of a new three-year contract as artistic director of the Columbus (Ohio) Symphony as reasons for his resignation.

MORE LISZT: In three concerts benefitting KXLU, the classical-music station of Loyola Marymount University, pianist Earl Wild will repeat his series of Liszt concerts presented earlier this year in New York, Chicago, London and Boston. On these centenary programs (noting the 100th anniversary of Liszt’s death), titled respectively “Liszt the Poet,” “Liszt the Transcriber” and “Liszt the Virtuoso,” Wild will perform 32 works by the Hungarian composer/conductor/pianist. They include the West Coast premiere of Liszt’s transcription of Beethoven’s First Symphony, the “Dante” Sonata, the Sonata in B minor, four “Transcendental” Etudes and three Hungarian Rhapsodies (Nos. 2, 4 and 12). Performances are scheduled in Murphy Hall at LMU, May 19, May 21 and May 23, each night at 8. For information: (213) 215-1270

Also noting the centenary, the Library of Congress will sponsor a Liszt celebration in Washington, June 22-29. Among a list of distinguished participants are the names of pianists Jorge Bolet, Christopher O’Riley, Jerome Rose and Russell Sherman, scholars Nicolas Slonimsky, Alan Walker, Tibor Szasz and Jacques Barzun, singers William Parker and Victoria Livengood and violinist Aaron Rosand. Twenty-two events are planned, including concerts, master classes, symposiums and lectures. For information: (202) 357-2498, or (301) 490-5261.

BRIEFLY: Fred Strickler, a founding member of the Los Angeles-based Jazz Tap Ensemble, will make his debut with the New York Philharmonic, May 22, performing Morton Gould’s rarely heard “Tap Dance” Concerto. . . . Ondeko-Za, the 17-year-old “Demon Drum Group” from Japan, returns to Southern California this week for a series of eight appearances. The 18-member performance ensemble appears at Wilshire Ebell Theatre Thursday and May 12-14, all four times at 8 p.m.; at Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple in Little Tokyo, Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; at Kohyasan Buddhist Temple, also in Little Tokyo, next Sunday at 2 p.m.; at El Camino College, May 15 at 8 p.m., and at East L.A. College, May 17 at 8 p.m. . . . Film composer Alex North, honored recently with a special Oscar at the Academy Awards presentations, will be honored, again, by UCLA Extension on May 17 with a daylong retrospective of his work, background and techniques, as part of the series, “Film Music Dialogues.” For information: (213) 825-9064. . . . A company of 100 from Madrid will present “Antologia de la Zarzuela” at Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, Thursday at 8 p.m., and again Saturday at 8:30 p.m. and next Sunday at 2 and 8 p.m. “Antologia de la Zarzuela,” under patronage of the Spanish government, presents music and dance from the Teatro Lirico in Madrid.