LEWIS: FROM USC TO THE PHILHARMONIC PODIUM

For all the security and warmth a tenured university position offers a conductor, there is a price to pay. Big league orchestras, such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, tend to overlook pedants when seasons are planned.

Daniel Lewis will be the first to point this out. It’s been 10 years since the USC-based conductor occupied the Philharmonic podium. He’s expressed bitterness in the past about it, telling The Times in 1983, “The Philharmonic management always thought of me at times of crisis, hardly ever when the regular symphony season was being planned.”

This week, however, you’ll hear not a discouraging word from Lewis. Thursday at the Music Center, he begins a two-week stint with the orchestra.

“Anyone connected with an educational institution finds that it’s tough to break out of the stereotype (as an academician). I’m grateful to Ernest (Fleischmann, Philharmonic executive director) for not falling prey to that. So many people seem to forget that (Fritz) Reiner taught, and a lot of the others, too. Still, (some orchestra officials) will say, ‘Dan Lewis? But he’s with a school. That’s not good for ticket sales.’ “I’ve spoken about this with Jorge Mester (a stalwart on the Juilliard faculty, and Lewis’ successor as music director of the Pasadena Symphony). He says that attitude is very real.”

While the 61-year-old conductor does allow that “it would have been easier if I had a continuing relationship” with the Philharmonic, he stresses, “I don’t feel passed over. I was entrenched with the Pasadena Symphony, building that orchestra. (He served for 11 years, resigning in 1983). And for a spell, a couple of years ago, it appeared I was going to move East (to teach at the New England Conservatory of Music). Perhaps that’s why Ernest didn’t call.”

(Reached in New York, Fleischmann concurred, noting, “We had to be sensitive to his situation” with the Pasadena Symphony and New England Conservatory.)

Not that Lewis has been waiting for the phone to ring all this time. He has been a frequent guest conductor around the country and served with Leonard Bernstein as co-director of the Philharmonic Institute’s inaugural season in 1982. He also claims to have received no less than five requests “to accept a position or become a major candidate with a professional orchestra. In each instance I turned them down because in those locations I couldn’t play the variety of music I want--new music.

“You know what would be the worst thing that could happen to me? A 36-week season of standard repertory, season after season after season, in a community that had no interest in growing. I’ve talked with Michael Tilson Thomas about this, and he told me he was still looking for the proper community (to take a conducting position). A lot of my friends who serve as music directors are miserable, leading all those ‘Nutcrackers’ and National Anthems.”

Lewis seemed to have found that “proper community” in Pasadena, where he consistently lead adventurous programs, before resigning after a falling out with the board of directors. “I regret the way it all ended. I miss the orchestra. I miss what I built. I know that sounds conceited, but it’s how I feel. All that painful work in replacing players cost me a lot of friends.

“You know what some of my friends tell me? They say I’m too sensitive to lead a professional orchestra like the Philharmonic.”

Which leaves the security and warmth of USC and its impressive orchestral program, to which the conductor recently returned following a sabbatical last spring. “I’ll tell you something: When you stand face-to-face with those sharp kids in the orchestra, it is not a come-down--even after the Philharmonic.”