NEW MUSIC LA 1987 : SOUNDING OUT NEW MUSIC

Bonnie Barnett could scarcely believe her ears. Standing in a MacArthur Park tunnel below Wilshire Boulevard on a damp Tuesday afternoon, she was sounding out a series of short vocal bursts and comparing them with her pitch pipe.

“This is amazing,” she said, as her last “hooo” continued to reverberate. “Last time I was here, the tunnel resonated at F. Now it’s at F-sharp. It must be the weather.”

Passers-by probably couldn’t care less, but this was an important tuning session for the locally based performance artist. On March 15, she will lead a gathering in that tunnel for “MacArthur Park Hum,” part of the closing day of activities in the two-week-long “New Music Los Angeles ’87 Festival.”

“Hum” is unique among the two-dozen performances at the festival, which begins Sunday. The tunnel music will be the chief responsibility of the audience-- Barnett and her two collaborators will serve only to establish that F-sharp tonality. The hummers will improvise on the pitch for an hour or so, creating what Barnett calls “an expression of group energy.”

“You know, we all used to make a lot of music together in the olden days,” she said as she paused by the colorfully painted exterior of the tunnel. “I’m all for music that is played behind the proscenium, but there’s a special feeling after an audience takes part in one of my hums (this event marks her 21st such venture). When it’s over, no one wants to leave. There’s a lot of warm social interaction.

“People seem to carry that feeling into the next thing they do. I always tell them, ‘When you’re in tune . . . you’re in tune!’ ”

Barnett, 39, has inspired hummers in a variety of unusual locales: in a Houston subterranean shopping mall, 30,000 feet up in a jet liner, even in automobiles throughout Los Angeles (the latter as part of “New Music America” in 1985). But nothing, she said, beats a tunnel: “It’s my favorite environment.”

Still, she has a dream that goes beyond even the largest of tunnels--it involves the entire planet. “I would love to do a Global Hum, via satellite hookup. I think it’s quite possible, if I can get the funding.

“Getting people to participate would be no problem, of course, because the performance would not be restricted by the many languages of the world. Everybody hums.”

On a much smaller level, one could draw an analogy for this city as a similarly diverse world of cultures and tastes and, yes, barriers. At least, that’s the view of festival coordinator Ara Guzelimian, who views the event as offering “a cross section of music that captures the fragmented, scattered nature of the city.”

Rather than entrust two or three organizations to present concerts, Guzelimian said, festival organizers decided to invite 22 of the more important local groups “to simply do what they felt they did best. The festival, then, is kind of like a pot-luck supper.”

Guzelimian noted that, even before the opening note is sounded on Sunday, this two-week “supper” must already be judged a success of sorts: “Planning the festival has taught all of us to work together.”

It’s no small accomplishment, he said, to bring together such diverse organizations as Independent Composers Assn. (presenters of the closing day of activities at MacArthur Park), Los Angeles Philharmonic, Arnold Schoenberg Institute, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, the Lhasa Club in Hollywood, UCLA, USC, CalArts, Cal State Northridge, Orange County Composers’ Circle, etc.

“There’d been a lack of contact in the past--everyone had been working in relative isolation,” Guzelimian said. “We’ve held the planning meetings in many of the locales for the concerts and, as it turned out, that became the first opportunity for a lot of the organizers to visit places like the Lhasa Club or LACE.”

It’s one thing to lure new-music-minded organizations to feast at the same table, but what about local audiences? This, Guzelimian admitted, presents similar problems.

“Audiences here are just as fragmented as the musical scene. But I think we may be able to create a ‘festival psyche,’ where someone may be intrigued by the sheer amount of activity to come and take a chance. There may be a momentum effect, in which people end up going to five or six programs.

“I’m sure that sophisticated listeners will only attend one type of event--say, the Boulez concerts at the Philharmonic (both weeks of the festival), or the London Underground program (March 13 at the Alexandria Hotel). But I know that our audience is larger than any of those hard-core groups.”

Guzelimian denied that the festival was trying to appear hip to the local punk-rock scene by offering a “Surf Night” (March 12 at LACE, featuring local surf bands plus clips from surfing movies of the ‘40s and ‘50s). “Once again, we left it up to the presenting group. We didn’t vote down any of their ideas.

“Besides, the boundaries between pop and serious art have always been blurred. Look at such ‘serious’ composers as Beethoven and Schubert--they wrote a lot of popular music.”

Whether it be surf music, performance art, academic composition . . . or a group hum under Wilshire Boulevard, Guzelimian suggested, it’s all L.A. music.

“This city is like a giant library, only there’s no central card catalogue. That’s what this festival is hoping to accomplish--to create a meeting point for the new-music community.”

The complete festival schedule is as follows:

SUNDAY

TASHI (Wadsworth Theater, West L.A. VA Grounds (213) 825-9261). The premiere of Lukas Foss’ “Tashi,” with the composer as pianist, plus music by Karel Husa, Toru Takemitsu, Bruce Adolphe and William Thomas McKinley. 4 p.m.

UCLA ENSEMBLES (Royce Hall Experimental Theatre, UCLA, (213) 825-9261). Works by faculty composers. 8 p.m.

TUESDAY

USC CONTEMPORARY MUSIC ENSEMBLE (University Church, USC, (213) 743-7111). Donald Crockett conducts music by John Harbison, Frederick Lesemann and Scott August Rea. 8 p.m.

PACIFIC COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA (Japan America Theatre, 224 S. San Pedro St., (213) 680-3700). The ensemble’s debut, with Shahrdad Rohani conducting. Music by Don Ray, Mark Waters, Robert Resetar and Joey Rand. 8 p.m.

WEDNESDAY

CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE ENSEMBLES (Japan America Theatre, 224 S. San Pedro St., (213) 680-3700). Music by members of the Northridge faculty. 8 p.m.

THURSDAY

CAL-ARTS 20TH CENTURY PLAYERS AND DANCE ENSEMBLE (Japan America Theatre, 224 S. San Pedro St., (213) 680-3700). The CalArts contemporary music festival opens with “Domaines” by Pierre Boulez and “Sixteen Dances” by John Cage. 8 p.m.

NEXT FRIDAY LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC (Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., (213) 972-7211). Pierre Boulez conducts his own “Notations,” as well as Berio’s “Corale” and Bartok’s “The Wooden Prince.” 8 p.m.

CALIFORNIA OUTSIDE MUSIC ASSN. (Lhasa Club, 1110 N. Hudson Ave., Hollywood, (213) 461-7284). An evening of “Visual But Not Video: Music That’s Fun to Watch.” 9 p.m.

MARCH 7 CAL-ARTS CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL (CalArts, Valencia, (818) 362-2315). The first of two full days at the school: pianist Alan Feinberg (1:30 p.m.); California E.A.R. Unit (4 p.m.); CalArts Jazz Ensemble and others (7:30 p.m.).

MARCH 8 CAL-ARTS CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL (CalArts, Valencia, (818) 362-2315). Events include “Six Pianos in Search of a Player” (3 p.m.); oboist Han de Vries and percussionist Arthur Jarvinen (4 p.m.); a composer’s forum with John Cage (6 p.m.), and a concert honoring Cage on his 75th birthday (8 p.m.).

MARCH 9 MONDAY EVENING CONCERTS ENSEMBLE (Bing Theatre, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., (213) 857-6111). Joel Thome leads music by Henze and Kenneth Rouse. 8 p.m.

MARCH 10 ALAN FEINBERG (Schoenberg Institute, USC, 5 p.m.). The pianist plays music of Wolpe, Davidovsky, Ligeti, Ran and Busoni. 5 p.m.

USC CONTEMPORARY MUSIC ENSEMBLE (Japan America Theatre, 224 S. San Pedro St., (213) 680-3700). Donald Crockett conducts premieres of 19 brief compositions. 8 p.m.

MARCH 11 MICHIKO AKAO (Japan America Theatre, 224 S. San Pedro St., (213) 680-3700). Contemporary music for the yokobue (Japanese flute). 8 p.m.

LO CAL COMPOSERS ENSEMBLE (University of Judaism, 15600 Mulholland Dr., (818) 704-1312). Seven premieres by locally-based composers. 8 p.m.

MARCH 12 SURF NIGHT (LACE Performance Gallery, 1804 Industrial St., (213) 624-5650). Music by local bands and “surf legends,” plus clips from classic surf films. 8 p.m.

MARCH 13 LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC (Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., (213) 972-7211). Pierre Boulez conducts the orchestra, soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson and the L.A. Master Chorale in three of his own works plus two by Stravinsky. 8 p.m.

LONDON UNDERGROUND (Charlie’s Obsession, Alexandria Hotel, 501 S. Spring St., (213) 623-4263). Members of several groups from the electronic avant-garde movement in London. 11 p.m.

MARCH 14 SPECULUM MUSICAE (Japan America Theatre, 224 S. San Pedro St., (213) 680-3700). Recent works from Orange County composers. 8 p.m.

AN EVENING OF COMPOSER-PERFORMERS (Lhasa Club, 1110 N. Hudson Ave., Hollywood, (213) 623-2752). Works by Gregg Wager, David Ocker, Vinny Golia and others. 9 p.m.

MARCH 15 MACARTHUR PARK EVENTS (MacArthur Park, Park View and 6th Street, (213) 623-1122). Bonnie Barnett’s “MacArthur Park Hum” (noon, Westside tunnel); Lo Cal Orchestra concert (Bandshell, 1:30 p.m.), plus ongoing installations.

LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC NEW MUSIC GROUP (Japan America Theatre, 224 S. San Pedro St., (213) 972-7211). Pierre Boulez conducts his own “Marteau sans Maitre” and Stravinsky’s “Pierrot Lunaire” (with soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson). 2:30 p.m.

LA ECLECTRIC (Stella Polaris Gallery, 445 S. Beverly Dr., Beverly Hills, (213) 553-4400). A program of multimedia works. 8 p.m.

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