CONCERTS INCLUDE COUNTY-LINKED WORKS

Conductor Larry Granger is making good on his promise last year to program works by composers associated with Orange County.

The 1987-88 season of Granger’s South Coast Symphony lists three composers who qualified in a competition Granger announced in April, 1986, for works “somewhat related to Orange County.”

“We wanted to create some attention for the centennial (of the county) through the competition and make some awareness of the composers here,” Granger said recently.

“Winning is simply having the piece performed. We had about eight compositions submitted and selected these three.”

The composers and their works are:

- William Grant Still’s Suite No. 4, “The Far West,” to be played on Sept. 19.

- Harriet Payne’s “Phantasy for String Orchestra,” scheduled for Jan. 9, 1988.

- Leon Stein’s Concerto for Oboe, with soloist Joel Timm, on April 30.

Payne and Stein are current residents of the county. Still, who died in 1978, was a long-term resident of Los Angeles but his daughter, Judith Anne Still Headlee, has lived in Orange County for more than 20 years and still maintains the family music business out of Mission Viejo.

“A lot of what we had submitted was lighter music than what we wanted to put on a classical series,” Granger said. “These three were most in the traditional style of what we would assume would be classical orchestral literature. We’re real pleased.”

Still’s Suite is “a fairly short tone poem made up of three movements that are very descriptive,” Granger said. The movements are “The Plaza,” “Sundown Land” and “Navaho Country.”

According to the conductor, Still’s work is one of five suites in a series the composer called “The American Scene.” The others are “The East,” “The South,” “The Old West” and “A Mountain, a Memorial and a Song.”

Payne’s “Phantasy for String Orchestra” began life as a string quartet, she said recently.

“I composed it when I was studying composition with (Sir) Eugene Goossens, around 1935,” Payne said. “It started out as an exercise in what could be done with a theme--expanding, contracting, upside down and all that sort of thing.”

Payne orchestrated the work for a performance in Florida in the 1950s.

“It turned out fairly well,” she said. “I’m fond of the work. It is not easy. But it’s not all that old-fashioned. I like recognizable themes, but I’m also fond of complicated rhythms and harmonies. There are some dissonances, but not to the extent in much recent music.”

Payne was principal violist with the Indianapolis Symphony, among other positions, before moving to the Southland in 1944 to teach at USC. She moved to Laguna Hills 13 years ago and has played with several local orchestras, including the South Coast Symphony with which she is still associated.

Stein’s Concerto for Oboe also underwent a transformation.

“I began it as a slow movement, ‘In Memoriam,’ for the concertmaster of my City Symphony Orchestra in Chicago--Herbert Silverstein,” Stein said recently.

“Then I thought I’d put a fast movement on either side and make a concerto. I had several oboe players look over it to make sure it lay well for the instrument.”

The work is in the traditional three movements and lasts approximately 15 minutes. It was completed last March.

Granger originally had hoped to offer the world premiere of the work, but before submitting it to the competition, Stein had already set in motion negotiations with the Chicago Symphony, and that renowned orchestra will get the premiere.

Stein’s association with Chicago was lifelong until he moved to Laguna Hills 2 1/2 years ago. He was born in the Windy City in 1910 and taught at DePaul University there for 45 years. “I went through the ranks from instructor to dean,” he said. He also conducted various orchestras, including the City Symphony, a union-sponsored organization.

Stein’s music has been characterized as “middle-ground modernism,” he said.

“Another critic called my music ‘traditionally modern.’ It’s traditional in the sense that it does not involve graphic notation or chance (methods). In general, the work is not avant-garde. But it’s a difficult work.”

Granger added: “We’re still soliciting compositions and hope that we get some more new works submitted to us. This is just the first of two seasons.”

Dates and programs for the classical music concerts--including two at Santa Ana High School--will be:

- Sept. 19 at Orange Coast College: Still’s Suite No. 4, “The Far West”; Dvorak’s Symphony No. 6 in D; Gershwin Concerto in F for Piano, with soloist Jeffrey Manookian.

- Nov. 14 at Santa Ana High School: Vaughan Williams’ “A London Symphony” (No. 2); Brahms’ Concerto in A minor for Violin and Cello, with cellist John Walz, violinist to be announced.

- Jan. 9, 1988 at Orange Coast College: Payne’s “Phantasy for String Orchestra”; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat, “Eroica”; Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez for Guitar and Orchestra, with soloist Jack Sanders.

- March 12 at Santa Ana High School: Prelude to Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshhina”; Suites from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet”; Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, with soloist Leonard Pennario.

- April 30 at Orange Coast College: Prelude to Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger”; Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique”; Stein’s Concerto for Oboe, with soloist Joel Timm.

Three pops concerts also will be presented.