FESTIVAL PARTICIPANT : LUKAS FOSS HONORS HIS OLD FRIEND BERNSTEIN

Lukas Foss and Leonard Bernstein are archetypal musical overachievers: Each is a respected composer-conductor-pianist-educator.

The two men are also the oldest of friends. Foss, now 64, was barely a teen-ager when he was first introduced to Bernstein, who turns 69 next year.

Imagine the scene in the present tense when these giants of music meet. Surely the creative sparks must fly.

Not exactly.

To hear Foss tell it, the two act like a couple of little boys when they’re together. “We constantly kid each other, always trying to top the other’s joke.

“As composers, we have only one thing in common--our sense of humor.”

All kidding aside, Foss displays nothing short of total respect for his colleague. In a telephone interview from Milwaukee, he continually turns the conversation away from himself: “But we are not talking about the Bernstein Festival,” he complains.

Foss is referring to his role in a pair of programs this week, presented by the Orange County Pacific Symphony at Segerstrom Hall, Costa Mesa, devoted to two facets of Bernstein’s output--his “serious” orchestral works and his contributions to the musical theater and the ballet.

Tonight and Thursday, Foss will serve as pianist in the Symphony No. 2, dubbed “The Age of Anxiety.” On Saturday the agenda is pops, with Foss succeeding Keith Clark on the podium for a program titled “Bernstein on Broadway.”

The notion that there are multiple sides to Bernstein the composer doesn’t sit too well with Foss. “It’s all Lenny--you can’t miss it. He literally makes everything his own. Even ‘The Age of Anxiety’ isn’t all serious. It has a jazz movement.”

There’s less fence-straddling on the subject of Foss’ preferences as a participant at the Pacific Symphony concerts this week. “When I sit at the piano,” he says, “I worry about my fingers. On the podium, I worry about the musicians.” A pause. “I think I prefer worrying about the musicians.”

Such modesty. Foss, after all, was the pianist in both the first and most recent recordings of the “Age of Anxiety” (both conducted by Bernstein). “Lenny jokes that he really wrote it for me,” he says with a chuckle.

One work in the “Bernstein on Broadway” program has similarly figured prominently in Foss’ career: the Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story.” The conductor notes with pride: “I led the first performance of the suite. It’s a funny thing about that show--it made (Bernstein) famous. He became known as ‘The man who wrote “West Side Story.” ’ In a way that dampens a composer. People love to label and file you.

“I don’t know how they’d label me.”

Indeed, the music of Foss has covered a wide range of styles, from neoclassical to “pulse.” And the itch to write remains--in fact, that is why he recently announced his decision to leave the directorship of the Milwaukee Symphony. “I’ve been with the orchestra for five years now, which is just perfect (for leaving).

“Now I can move on. I need time to compose, to belong to the rest of the world.” He will continue his lighter duties as music director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, however.

Recent compositions include a commissioned work for the chamber group Tashi. As part of the commission, Foss will serve as pianist in performances of the still-untitled piece when the ensemble tours next year. A concert at Royce Hall is scheduled for March 1.

The UCLA date marks a homecoming of sorts, since Foss taught in Westwood for a decade. “It’s been 25 years,” he recalls. “I remember just before we left, I lost everything in that terrible Bel-Air fire.”

Apart from an engagement with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1981, Southern California has seen little of Foss in the intervening years, outside of those memorable Hollywood Bowl marathon concerts in the early ‘70s.

“Those were our attempts to get the young people to come--and they did,” he says of those marathons. “We had fun back then. Now, people are more holy with a capital H .”

Foss is obviously still interested in fun with a capital F . His interest in the new Performing Arts Center of Orange County prompts a pair of all-important questions:

“Tell me, this new center, is it close to the beach? Is the water warm there these days?”