HUGH WOLFF WILL MAKE LOCAL CONDUCTING DEBUT

At 33, Hugh Wolff is one of the youngest music directors of a major U.S. orchestra--the New Jersey Symphony.

But Wolff’s credentials are in order. He served for three years as an Exxon/Arts Endowment conductor at the National Symphony in Washington, working under Mstislav Rostropovich. Then, in 1982, the red-haired, Paris-born American musician became associate conductor of the orchestra for three years. He has served as guest conductor with the orchestras of Chicago, Houston, St. Louis and Seattle. And, in 1985, he was one of two winners of the prestigious Affiliate Artists’ Seaver Award for young conductors, a cash prize of $75,000.

Wolff will make his Southern California debut this week conducting the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra at concerts in the Beverly Theatre in Beverly Hills, Thursday night at 8; in El Cajon, Friday at 8, and in Ambassador Auditorium, Saturday at 8:30. He’ll lead a program devoted to Kodaly’s Dances From Galanta, the Violin Concerto by Samuel Barber (with Elmar Oliveira as soloist) and Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony.

“Isn’t the ‘Jupiter’ rather exposing for a young conductor?” Wolff was asked when reached by phone in New York City, where he had just returned from a rehearsal in New Jersey.

“No more so than any other work by Mozart,” he said without hesitation, between spoonfuls of won-ton soup. “Mozart exposes everybody. But he’s one composer I’m comfortable walking around inside.”

Now in the second year--his first full season--of a four-year contract with the New Jersey ensemble, Wolff says he remains optimistic about the future of the once-embattled orchestra.

“There’s always room for improvement, and we are instituting many changes--though not in personnel--in the operations of the orchestra. But I feel very good about the way things are going.

“We have consolidated all those many performing locations down to four places. Plus, we are expanding into areas we’ve not gone before--like Princeton and Rutgers universities. But subscriptions are up, the orchestra’s morale is high, and we are all very hopeful.”

AT THE PHILHARMONIC: Andre Previn and the Los Angeles Philharmonic present a local premiere this week. It is the first Los Angeles performance of Harold Shapero’s 39-year-old Symphony for Classical Orchestra. The work, much admired at the time of its world premiere by the Boston Symphony in 1948, was written on a commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation. Shapero, a contemporary of Leonard Bernstein and also a native of Massachusetts, has been on the music faculty of Brandeis University for more than 35 years. He will attend this premiere. For the second half of this program, Emanuel Ax will be soloist in Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto.

Performances are scheduled in the Pavilion of the Music Center, Thursday at 8 p.m., Friday at 1:30 p.m. and next Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Saturday night at 8, the same program, with all the same participants, will be given in Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

GRANTS: San Francisco Opera, which recently announced the cancellation of its summer season in 1987, has been awarded a grant of $332,771 from the California Arts Council. The grant represents the largest amount ever given by the Council. . . . The Pacific Symphony Assn. is also the recipient of a California Arts Council Grant for the season 1986-87, this in the amount of $32,537. According to a spokesman for the association, the funds will be used to pay for additional rehearsals, an expansion of the ensemble’s string section and to underwrite some expenses for guest artists. . . . The Rockefeller Foundation of New York has awarded a $40,000 grant to the Creative Future Fund of the Minnesota Composers Forum, thus bringing the forum to the halfway mark in its current fund-raising goal of $300,000. Established in 1985, the Creative Future Fund was designed to ensure the financial stability of the forum and to support the continued performance, broadcasting and recording of works by its composers.

CONDUCTORS: Raymond Leppard has been named music director-elect of the Indianapolis Symphony, his tenure to begin in September, 1987. The British musician, 59, will succeed John Nelson, now in his 11th season with the Indiana ensemble.

Bruce Ferden, who conducted the world premiere of Philip Glass’ “Satyagraha” at Netherlands Opera in 1983, will lead all 10 performances of Robert Wilson’s “the CIVIL warS,” Act 5, “The Rome Section,” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dec. 14-30. Wilson’s massive, still-unproduced opera is in five sections. “The Rome Section” is the final portion; it is a complete opera with music by Philip Glass. The previous four section have all been collaborations between Wilson and other composers.