CRITICS SILENCED BY SUMMERFEST ’87

During last fall’s verbal warfare between the San Diego Symphony board and orchestra members, some cultural prognosticators claimed that San Diego suffered from a surfeit of classical music.

Local audiences, they said, had better things to do with their disposable time and income than to languish in darkened concert halls. With nearly every ticket sold for SummerFest ‘87--a week before the festival’s opening concert--the La Jolla Chamber Music Society has demonstrated that the demand far exceeds the supply.

As of Wednesday morning, Geoff Brooks, the society’s executive director, said there were about 25 tickets left for the Sunday matinee concert. The other six programs are sold out, however, from Saturday’s opening night program to the grand finale Aug. 30.

“We’ve even added an extra 50 chairs to the Sherwood Auditorium stage for each chamber concert,” Brooks said. For those chamber music aficionados who procrastinated over ordering their festival tickets, several open rehearsals held each weekend will provide a free sampling of the festival’s musical offerings.

Though Brooks attributed the fiscal success of the society’s second summer music festival to prudent management and thorough audience analysis, the festival’s roster of performers and programming are not easily dismissed.

“I think it’s quite exciting for the audience,” cellist Ralph Kirshbaum said. “The majority of us have appeared as soloists with the San Diego Symphony, but to hear these same people playing together, knowing they’ve been working for a week on, say, the Schubert Cello Quintet, is exciting.”

Israeli violinist Miriam Fried said, “If you offer the audience a high quality anything, they will eventually come to it. I have tremendous regard for the audience as an intelligent body of people.”

Kirshbaum and Fried had been rehearsing Schubert and Beethoven all afternoon in the La Jolla living room of one of the festival’s host families. The room’s comfortable appointments and mesmerizing ocean view contrasted sharply with the musicians’ intense concentration.

For Fried, La Jolla is the last stop on her summer festival itinerary. Since June, she has performed with her husband, violist Paul Bliss, in Finland’s Naantali Festival, the Lockenhaus Festival in Austria, and Boston’s Chamber Music East.

“I had a great time at last year’s (La Jolla) festival, which is why we’re back. Here we play with good people, and we don’t have to work too much,” explained the first woman winner of the Brussels Queen Elisabeth Competition.

“Here, we have adequate time to rehearse in a relaxed way,” Kirshbaum explained. “In some festivals, you are forced to put something together very quickly. Musically, it’s not nearly so satisfying. Here, I think we all feel that at the end of the day we have a common approach.”

Fried contrasted the rewards of working on chamber repertory, with colleagues in residence, with performing a concerto.

“When you play with an orchestra, you decide how you’re going to do it, and hopefully you work it out with the conductor. Then, you come in, and in 30 minutes or less, have one rehearsal, play and leave.”

Most of the SummerFest ’87 musicians are in residence for two weeks practicing and performing.

“This is not exactly a working vacation,” Kirshbaum said. “People will say to me, ‘Oh, gee, you’re going to have a wonderful time in La Jolla.’ I am, but it’s work. You have to practice your parts, as well as rehearse four or five hours a day.”

For the London-based cellist, returning to Southern California in the summer duplicates Kirshbaum’s childhood seasonal migration. His father, violinist Joseph Kirshbaum, was concertmaster of the San Diego Symphony in the 1950s when conductor Robert Shaw presented the orchestra’s main season in Balboa Park.

“We used to come as a family,” Kirshbaum said. “We would stay from three to six weeks each summer. My father was born here, and he had a special affection for this part of the country, which is why he retired here to La Jolla.”

Kirshbaum said the status of chamber music has risen in recent years, along with the proliferation of summer chamber music festivals.

“For the solo performer, it is a reflection of what has happened in the last 15 years. Someone who is primarily working as a soloist can--without ruining their reputation--be seen in public playing chamber music.”