SYMPHONY MUSICIANS TURN TO DO-IT-YOURSELF MANAGEMENT

Taking a lesson from teen-age rock ‘n’ roll “garage” bands, the musicians of the San Diego Symphony have created their own “garage” management. And it is surprisingly adept at putting on concerts.

Operating out of the back room of a house on the bluffs above Lakeside, the players’ management team does the same things a professional symphony office staff would do: plan a season, book concert halls and guest conductors, hire stage hands, rent music, sell and buy advertising, prepare concert programs and arrange post-concert receptions.

“We’re very well-structured,” said trumpeter Mark Bedell. “We just don’t wear business clothes.”

Indeed, the core of musicians, friends and spouses, who have coalesced into a volunteer management committee, tend to wear jeans and tennis shoes. Their expertise is in making music, not selling ads for the concert programs or concert tickets by telephone. They are learning as they work.

The nerve center of this ad hoc operation is the guest room of John and Jessica Lorge’s home. John is a French horn player in the orchestra. Jessica, with a background in business and the arts, assumed the role of the musicians’ chief administrator in November when the symphony canceled its winter season.

Jessica quit her job to work for free for the musicians. The move meant that neither she nor John had any assured source of income. But with seven years behind her as a stockbroker’s secretary and a year as house manager at the East County Performing Arts Center in El Cajon, she felt the orchestra could use her skills in planning its own concerts.

“I believe in what goes around, comes around,” she said. “I had just accepted a job that would pay me $1,600 a month and . . . in a year the salary would go to $3,000 a month. But to me it was a question of ‘Are we concerned about two people or 80 people?’ ”

With two teen-agers and a newly bought house, John did not like that kind of logic.

“We had precisely three knockdown, drag-outs on this,” he said. “We argued and she fought. She didn’t want to do something less than rewarding, and she didn’t want to leave 80 people stranded.”

Somehow, with neither working, everything has worked out. “If you’re doing the right things, you get covered,” Jessica said. John was called for a week of concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic that paid him “almost as much as a month” with the San Diego Symphony, she said. During December, he had as many as 17 paying jobs a week. And he managed to get hired for the upcoming series of San Diego Opera performances.

With Jessica’s organizational skills, the players have launched their own series of concerts in the absence of a San Diego Symphony season.

“I’m a quick study,” Jessica said. “I think that’s the thing. I always end up managing.”

She outfitted her guest room with a $20 copier and a $60 IBM Selectric typewriter bought at yard sales, and with desks and furniture donated by supporters. She installed a phone line to handle ticket calls and bought a large-capacity answering machine.

As production manager, Jessica delegates a lot of authority to the musicians, who have been assigned specific tasks. “Potentially it’s a group of the the best office people that you can imagine,” she said. “These people are college graduates. They’re all capable of being quick studies. If you tell them something once, I never have to tell them again. That doesn’t happen in offices.

“They’re used to being on time anytime we have a meeting. And the sense of teamwork--the harmony--has already been established.” While she directs her volunteer crew, she is also answerable to them. “I am not answerable to a board,” she said. “I am answerable to those musicians.”

The concert series is performed under the auspices of the San Diego Philharmonic, but that organization was formed to provide a nonprofit base so that tax-deductible contributions could be solicited. In an effort to avoid any mismanagement, all contracts are reviewed by the board, Lorge said.

Having worked at the performing arts center in El Cajon, Jessica had watched groups come in and “do things right, and others do things the wrong way.” She, and the symphony musicians, profited by those mistakes.

After a November concert in El Cajon, the musicians cleaned up the lobby themselves. That included the evening’s conductor, Matthew Garbutt, dressed in tails, on his knees cleaning up spilled water.

The musicians’ performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at Civic Theatre on Jan. 24 was the first in a series of six concerts. Next on the schedule is a program of Stravinsky, Wagner and Debussy at 8 p.m. tonight at the East County Performing Arts Center.

Going into the Jan. 24 concert at the Civic Theatre, Jessica was uncertain about the financial picture. They had advance ticket sales of 1,500, out of a total 3,000 seats. Expenses had been met, but she was concerned about whether they would make much of a profit.

Not expecting many ticket sales the night of the concert, the Civic Theatre put half the normal staff on the ticket windows. But by curtain time, the line of people who wanted tickets stretched around the block. The musicians sold $12,000 worth of tickets at the windows, delaying the start of the concert by 30 minutes. But the musicians netted more than $16,000.

“When they heard about the crowd outside, they (the musicians) went wild,” Jessica said. “They were crying and shouting. They knew they had the community support behind them.”