NAGANO WILL CONDUCT KURTAG AT OJAI FESTIVAL

Born in 1951, when the Ojai Festival was already 4 years old, Kent Nagano seems the right conductor to lead the 40th edition of that outdoor event. The rising young musician, a protege of, among others, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez and Seiji Ozawa, and leader of the 1985 festival, certainly knows the traditions of Ojai.

For the 1986 Ojai Festival, Nagano has arranged his programs around a composer whose name is familiar but whose music is not widely known: the Hungarian Gyorgy Kurtag. Nagano says Kurtag’s “Messages of the Late Miss R.V. Troussova” (1981) is “a major, major piece” by a “very substantial” composer.

Nagano, the California-born, 34-year-old conductor who now divides his time between duties as music director of the Berkeley Symphony, an association with Boulez’s IRCAM establishment in Paris and free-lance conducting, will lead Kurtag’s “Messages” on the closing program, June 1 at 5:30 p.m. Composer Kurtag, whose 60th birthday was Feb. 19, will attend the three-day festival.

Earlier in the weekend, the Kronos Quartet will play Kurtag’s String Quartet No. 2 on opening night, May 30 at 8 p.m. And, on the morning of June 1, pianist Ursula Oppens will include Kurtag’s “Splinters” on her recital in Festival Bowl.

“While Kurtag will be the mortar on these programs, the three composers who really fathered the Ojai Festival--Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Copland--provide the bricks,” Nagano promises. Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 2 is on the festival-closing program; Stravinsky’s Symphony in C ends the May 31 orchestral concert, and the chamber version of Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” is featured on the Saturday afternoon concert by the E.A.R. Unit.

In addition, Nagano says, he has included works by an American composer not-yet-30, Aaron Kernis; an American composer now in his prime, John Adams; “the greatest living American composer,” Elliott Carter, and one of Nagano’s major influences, Pierre Boulez.

Of course, the conductor concludes, works from earlier centuries are also on the agenda. Represented on the five festival programs are Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Liszt, among others.

Nagano’s career continues to expand, he reports. On tour with the Boston Symphony earlier this season, Nagano made his debut in Japan. At the Paris Opera, he has already conducted Strauss’ “Salome”; next season, he will follow it with the same composer’s “Elektra.” His debut with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam takes place in the spring of 1987; at the same time, he is launching what he calls “a long association” with Dutch Radio.

“Though I now work a lot in Paris, it is not my principal residence,” the conductor says. “San Francisco is still my home.”

For Ojai Festival information, call (805) 646-2094 or write P.O. Box 185, Ojai 93023.

GOING ON TOUR IN MAY: The Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by its music director, Andre Previn, flies to the East Coast Tuesday, to begin an 11-day tour in Philadelphia, Wednesday night at the Academy of Music. Subsequent tour stops are at Carnegie and Avery Fisher halls in New York City; in Flushing and Buffalo, N.Y.; Columbus, Ohio, and Oklahoma City, Fort Worth and Houston. The tour is underwritten by American Isuzu Motors Inc. . . . Meanwhile, conductor Riccardo Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra leave Monday on a 16-city North American tour. This tour, marking the 50th anniversary of the Philadelphia ensemble’s first U.S. tour, touches down in, among other places, Vancouver (for Expo ‘86), Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, Las Vegas, Santa Barbara, Denver and, in appearances June 1, 2 and 3 at Ambassador Auditorium, Pasadena. . . . Elmar Oliveira begins a four-concert tour of the Soviet Union next Sunday with an appearance with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Viktor Tretyakov, conductor.

COMING THIS WEEK: Korean pianist Kun-Woo Paik plays a Liszt/Messiaen program on the Gold Medal series at Ambassador Auditorium, Monday night at 8. . . . Also Monday night, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players make a first local appearance, on Monday Evening Concerts, at the County Museum of Art. Composers represented on the Players’ program are Pierre Boulez, Toshio Hosokawa, Wayne Peterson, Richard Meale and Wolfgang Rihm. . . . On Tuesday, the Pasadena Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Robert Duerr, offers music by American composers Charles Ives, Ian Krouse, John Adams, Aaron Copland and Scott Joplin. . . . The new Sitka/LA Festival of Chamber Music opens Thursday at 8 p.m. in Japan America Theatre. Participants on the opening-night concert are festival founder and violinist Yukiko Kamei, violinist Ik-Hwan Bae, violist Milton Thomas, cellists Jeffrey Solow and Nathaniel Rosen, oboist Allan Vogel, pianist Doris Stevenson, bassist Buell Neidlinger and percussionist David Johnson. . . . Conductor/pianist Skitch Henderson leads the L.A. Pops Orchestra in concert Friday night at the Century Plaza Hotel. . . . Guitarist Manuel Barrueco appears in recital tonight at 8 in Royce Hall, UCLA.

PEOPLE: Vladimir Ashkenazy has agreed to become regular guest conductor with the Cleveland Orchestra for the three seasons beginning in 1986-87. Ashkenazy will lead the ensemble for a minimum of five weeks every year. . . . Henri Temianka is in England this month, giving master classes at three locations: the Royal Academy of Music in London, Trinity College and the Yehudi Menuhin School. . . . Val Caniparoli and Victoria Morgan, dancers/choreographers of San Francisco Ballet, are the recipients of $5,000 choreography grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. . . . Speight Jenkins, general director of Seattle Opera since September, 1983, has been signed to a new, three-year contract as head of that company. . . . Simon Estes will deliver the commencement address Friday morning at his alma mater, the Juilliard School in New York City. . . . Joan Dornemann, an assistant conductor and principal coach at the Metropolitan Opera, will become music director of Minnesota Opera, effective June 1. Dornemann will continue her association with the Met. . . . Steven Mayer will replace the indisposed Rudolf Serkin playing the seldom-heard Piano Concerto by Max Reger in concerts by the San Francisco Symphony, Thursday and Saturday in Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco.