SYMPHONY RETURNS WITH VARIED WINTER SEASON

Realistic fiscal planning and an innovative, community approach to marketing classical music will be the hallmarks of the San Diego Symphony’s return to a winter concert season.

At a Thursday morning press conference at Symphony Hall, Executive Director Wesley O. Brustad unveiled a varied, 18-week subscription season, including three different pops concerts for the historically troubled symphony.

Hoping to “expose a greater variety of people to the symphony,” Brustad has also expanded the orchestra’s series of educational concerts for children and planned a plethora of “Coffee Concerts,” “Popcorn Concerts,” “After Hours Concerts” and travelogue concerts for different days of the week and hours of the day. The symphony also will play a series of free concerts at still undetermined locations.

Twenty of the community and educational programs and a pair of subscription concerts will be conducted by Brazilian-born Fabio Mechetti, who has been appointed symphony resident conductor, said Brustad.

Mechetti will commute between San Diego and Washington, where he is the Exxon/arts endowment conductor of the National Symphony.

Appointments of an interim “music adviser” and a permanent conductor and music director are still months, if not years, away, Brustad said.

He acknowledged that the symphony has an uphill battle in closing a credibility gap and building community support, even though the symphony’s board of directors has quietly raised $1.2 million to wipe out its operating deficit. The symphony is now set to launch a public campaign to raise $2 million for the coming season.

“What’s foremost is to balance the budget,” Brustad said. To do that, “we’ve got to sell a lot of tickets and raise a lot of money.”

“We’re being realistic about this,” he added. “We’re not trying to say it will happen overnight.”

The 1987-88 symphony season is budgeted at $5.7 million, compared with $8 million for the 1985-86 season. Brustad said he has slashed expenses 30%, with cuts across the board.

This year revenue from ticket sales and contributions must cover costs. “We’ve reduced the level of contributed income to the level we’ve been able to raise (in the past),” he said. Similarly, the projected $3.7 million in ticket sales this season compares favorably with sales in other years, he said.

The symphony canceled last year’s season due to financial difficulties and a labor dispute with musicians. A new pact calling for substantially lower pay for musicians was signed in May. The current agreement calls for a 32-week season, 13 weeks less than the 1985-86 season.

On Thursday, Brustad outlined a five-point plan for establishing financial stability and eliminating the symphony’s $4.5-million capital debt, incurred by purchasing and renovating the 2,200-seat theater in 1985.

Highlights of the coming season include the Nov. 13 opening concert featuring pianist Jon Kimura Parker in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Guest conductors include Daniel Lewis, head of conducting studies at USC; Yoav Talmi, music director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra; Bernard Klee, and Hugh Wolf, music director of the New Jersey Symphony.

Guest artists include violinists Elmar Oliveira, Ida Kavafian and Ruggiero Ricci; pianists Misha Dichter, Andre Schub and Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich; cellist Carter Brey, and trumpeter Stephen Burns.

Cab Calloway will lead one of the pops concerts, and negotiations are still under way with composer Marvin Hamlisch to direct a night of his music.

Omitted in this year’s subscription programming are regular Thursday night and Sunday matinee concerts. Instead, Brustad has scheduled a number of concerts not on the subscription season. A series of After Hours Concerts, at 6 or 6:30 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays and preceded by hors d’oeuvres, is aimed at young professionals. Similarly, the symphony will play three 10:30 a.m. Thursday concerts.

For the three Saturday night Popcorn Concerts, the symphony will accompany movies of the silent film era. The one-hour Music Around the World concerts, focusing on the music of a specific country, will precede a narrated a buffet dinner and travelogue film on that country.

Mechetti, a native of Sao Paulo, received a master’s degree in conducting and composition in 1984 at the Juilliard School in New York. He is among several conductors selected by Exxon to serve as associate conductors in major orchestras.

Mechetti has served as assistant conductor of the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, as music director of the Sao Paulo Opera Theatre Chorus, and as assistant conductor of the Spokane Symphony, where he met Brustad who was the orchestra’s executive director. He has served as assistant conductor of the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, as music director of the Sao Paulo Opera Theatre Chorus, and as assistant conductor of the Spokane Symphony.

Mechetti was honored recently as a “Knight of Sao Paulo” for his contributions to the musical life of Brazil.