Overture : CalArts Reaches Out to Community With Plan for a Youth Orchestra

Wearing a dark suit and tie, 78-year-old Cesare Pascarella looked as though he might have been conducting a full orchestra in concert rather than an informal Saturday rehearsal for a few musicians in his studio at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia.

Although casually dressed in blue jeans and tennis shoes, the musicians he guided through one movement of a Beethoven opus--a pianist, a cellist and a clarinetist, all in their early teens--also performed as though they were in a more formal setting.

At the same time, a less advanced ensemble of younger musicians was working with Bob Auletta, Pascarella’s assistant, in another studio on the campus.

The musicians are the nucleus of what Pascarella and a group of energetic community leaders hope will become the new Santa Clarita Valley Youth Orchestra. Pascarella’s goal is to attract enough talented youths to start rehearsals in January for the orchestra’s first concert, tentatively scheduled for March.

CalArts began the orchestra program last summer to “introduce the beauty and knowledge of music” to school-age youngsters in the area, according to a brochure distributed to local students. A 14-member board of directors is attempting to raise funds needed to sustain a youth orchestra and to provide an instructional program to train aspiring young musicians to participate in the orchestra.

“We hope the program will be self-perpetuating,” said Betty Castleberry, board president.

To some degree, the orchestra’s formation is a gesture of good will toward the community by CalArts, which was viewed with suspicion by area residents when it moved into their midst in 1970.

For its part, until recently, CalArts has remained aloof from its neighbors.

When the school relocated from Burbank to Valencia, Auletta was a CalArts graduate student who moved to Newhall. He said many of his neighbors did not look kindly on the campus and its “strange students.”

“There was a definite separation then,” Auletta said. “There still is to some degree. We were the strangers from the city. We were all alone up here on the hill. The community was another world down there in the valley.”

One longtime community leader, who asked not to be named, said the area’s residents tend to be conservative and did not take kindly to the liberated sexual attitudes exhibited by students at CalArts, as well as on college campuses throughout the country, during the early 1970s.

“I didn’t even like the kinds of plays the students were putting on in those days,” the community leader said, referring to offbeat productions that tended to be controversial because of language and their view of sexual mores. “I just don’t like vulgarity on the stage.”

Changing Times

But times have changed, and so has CalArts. Although the budding young artists may still seem a little foreign to neighbors, their plays are more acceptable to the community. For example, “Harvey,” the classic comedy about the invisible rabbit who is Elwood P. Dowd’s best friend, is the current student theatrical production.

Formation of the youth orchestra is “a way of reaching out to the community,” said Anita Bonnell, CalArts public relations director and resident of Canyon Country. “We definitely are trying to involve the community more in CalArts activities.”

Auletta said he believes that the Santa Clarita Valley has “come of age” and is now ready to support cultural programs such as the orchestra.

Pascarella agreed. “I thought if we could get the community involved, we would get more involved with the community,” he said.

During the summer, CalArts held two instructional sessions for potential orchestra members, who were attracted by flyers distributed in schools. Parents of more than 30 youngsters paid $200 for one-to-one sessions with CalArts teachers.

Pascarella, a renowned cellist, said the lessons were offered at three levels--beginning, intermediate and advanced. School activities, including sports and band, drew most of the young musicians away from the orchestra in September. However, many are expected to return by the end of the orchestra enrollment period Dec. 7.

New members also are being registered at 9 a.m.-to-1 p.m. enrollment sessions held every Saturday. Registration fee is $25.

“Community response to the orchestra has been tremendous,” said Bonnell, who is also a board member of the youth-orchestra foundation.

The idea for the orchestra originated with David Bozman of Canyon Country, whose son, Alex, 14, a cellist, was a member of the former CalArts Youth Music Group, an orchestra for talented high school musicians conducted by Pascarella from 1960 through 1985. Although it had produced several successful professionals, the program was canceled by the CalArts administration because of lack of funds.

“David Bozman said to me, ‘My son needs an orchestra,’ ” Pascarella said. “He said he would start one.”

Bozman and others immediately recruited Castleberry to head the youth orchestra’s board of directors because of her interest in music and skill as an administrator. She is an administrative assistant with the Castaic Lake Water Agency and has been president of the Newhall Elementary School Board. During her four-year term on the school board, Castleberry was instrumental in restoring music to the curriculum in the Newhall school district.

“That was my goal--to return music to the classroom,” she said. “I feel very strongly that you need to educate the complete child, and that means musically as well as academically and physically.”

Music ‘a Basic Activity’

She said she accepted the presidency of the fledgling Santa Clarita Valley Youth Orchestra Foundation for much the same reasons. She also said she believes that the youth orchestra will make residents more aware of the joys of music.

“Music is a basic social and cultural activity of mankind,” Castleberry said. “It offers a great enjoyment to both performer and listener.”

She said her greatest challenge is to raise funds to sustain both an instructional program and a youth orchestra. Pascarella said that would take about $50,000.

The board is planning a wine-tasting event Dec. 7 at CalArts, Castleberry said, to make the community more aware of the youth orchestra.

Once the program is under way, Castleberry said, both the community and Cal Arts will benefit.

“The young musicians will feed into the CalArts program,” she said, and the local community and CalArts will get to know each other better.