ARTS WATCH : TUNING IN FOR A BETTER ORCHESTRA

Someone had blundered, it seemed. As Faith Gladkoff and a gang of about 40 would-be corporate cutpurses took notes, a panel of trusted business professionals spelled out in excruciating detail “The Combination to the Corporate Cash Vault.”

Actually, the public spoon-feeding was not for a den of thieves but designed to give arts professionals and volunteers the secrets of successfully applying to businesses for grants. It was just one of the sessions at last week’s annual conference of the Assn. of California Symphony Orchestras at the Hotel San Diego. Topics ranged from the artistic “Living in the Shadow of a Larger Orchestra,” to the highly technological “Computer Systems and Your Orchestra,” to the political “Programming for a Conservative Community.”

Gladkoff, a member of the San Diego Youth Symphony’s board of directors, was one of more than 100 who attended from around the state. Another was 24-year-old Jung-Ho Pak. The 1986 graduate of USC’s music school, who plans to form his own professional orchestra, was taking copious notes. A Santa Clara resident with two master’s degrees in conducting but no arts management training, Pak was “soaking up everything.”

“It’s incredible, better than buying a book,” Pak said. He plans to launch his first season in 1987 or ‘88, at the latest. His five-year plan calls for the orchestra to be a major Bay Area arts institution, and in 10 years a major state institution.

SUMMERFEST: With a memorable final concert featuring pieces by Beethoven and Schumann and Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8, dedicated to the “memory of the victims of fascism and war,” the La Jolla Chamber Music Society closed its own first music festival Sunday night.

For the past three years, the society has imported the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival for a week’s stint. This year the society hired violist and conductor Heiichiro Ohyama as festival director. Ohyama assembled 30 exceptional musicians and a program of eight concerts spread over two weekends. The musicians were drawn primarily from Los Angeles, San Diego and New York.

All of the concerts were well-attended, and several sold out, society Executive Director Geoff Brooks said.

One hopes that Maestro David Atherton and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra management will take note of the festival’s success. (Many symphony musicians performed in the festival.) It’s high time the symphony started programming a chamber music series.

SELLARS IN LA JOLLA--Iconoclastic director Peter Sellars’ impending departure from the American National Theatre at Washington’s Kennedy Center will not affect the La Jolla Playhouse production of “Ajax,” which Sellars staged for the national theater in June. Sellars, who said American National Theatre will suspend operations in his absence, is here to rehearse “Ajax” for the Playhouse run, opening Aug. 31.

“I had to take some time off,” Sellars said. “I’ll be doing opera and film, two parts of my life I can’t shunt off to the side.” Sellars’ immediate project is to direct his own screenplay of Jack Kerouak’s novel, “On the Road.”

In 18 months under Sellars’ artistic guidance, the Washington theater presented 24 productions, most of them avant garde and including “The Count of Monte Cristo,” “A Seagull,” “Idiot’s Delight,” “The Iceman Cometh,” and works by other theaters including the Wooster Group, Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, Israel’s Haifa Theater and “Shout Up a Morning” by the La Jolla Playhouse.

Sellars flew into San Diego Monday night in time for a Tuesday breakfast for the “Ajax” company before rehearsals.

ARTS TIX: The San Diego Theatre League’s discount ticket booth passed its sixth week at its temporary quarters in the Spreckels Theater box office with record sales. Known as Arts Tix, the discount ticket operation was designed to build new audiences for area arts organizations by selling half-price day-of-performance tickets as well as full-price tickets for other performances.

League Executive Director Alan Ziter said the booth has sold more than 700 tickets.

“Last week alone we sold 320 tickets and Saturday the booth sent back $2,000 to the theaters,” Ziter said. There was “no single big winner” among area theatrical and musical events, he said. Although the booth did not carry tickets for “La Cage aux Folles,” Ziter said the show’s presence in town may have caused more people to come to the ticket booth and discover that tickets were available for 25 different events.

Arts Tix is the only discount ticket operation in Southern California.

TOP WOMEN: A series of performances by women has been scheduled in association with the San Diego Repertory Theatre’s production of Caryl Churchill’s “Top Girls” at the Lyceum Theatre. The free noontime performances will be held in the Lyceum courtyard and include the improvisational comedy troupe Egomaniacks, Aug. 14; Shakey the Mime, Aug. 21; the performance art piece “Jo Mama Wears Army Boots,” Aug. 28; poetry and dance, Sept. 4; dance, Sept. 8; mime, Sept. 9; Mother Logo, an all-women mountain music string band, Sept. 11, and dance, Sept. 12. The Lyceum lobby contains an art exhibit by 18 local women.

ARTBEATS: The California Performing Arts Centre has signed a lease to present theater and films at the North Park Theatre, 2891 University Ave., Executive Director Martin Gregg has announced. Planned productions include a tribute to James Cagney, scheduled for Sept 26. . . .

UC San Diego 1984 graduate Aled Davies has been named one of the nation’s most promising actors by Theater World magazine, in its annual awards issue. Davies recently completed a tour with the New York-based The Acting Company, performing in “Orchards,” a group of plays based on the short stories of Anton Chekhov. In “Orchards,” Davies delivered a 40-minute monologue.