PACIFIC SYMPHONY COMES OF AGE : MAESTRO MAKES HIS OWN KIND OF ORCHESTRA

The Pacific Symphony started with “nothing,” says founder-conductor Keith Clark: “A grant of $2,000 and plans on my kitchen table.” Some of its earliest performances were in the Good Time Theatre at Knott’s Berry Farm.

Now, nine years later, its budget is more than $3 million. It plays at the ornate $70.7-million Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, where its second season continues this week.

“We’ve made pretty significant progress,” Clark points out.

Still, he acknowledges that “it will be a long time before the orchestra is everything one hopes for.” And though he says that every year has been “a watershed year,” the last few have brought their share of controversy.

For one thing, Clark has been accused of being too busy with administrative details to spend enough time on artistic preparation. And especially since the orchestra has moved to the Center, Clark has been accused of softening his repertory to draw bigger crowds.

In a wide-ranging interview at his home last week, he pleads not guilty on both counts:

“We were not called into being by a multimillionaire. So hand in hand with building up the orchestra, we were faced with building up a whole support system, developing a general feeling in Orange County of the importance of an orchestra.”

But he disagrees that building the system has come at the expense of his music: “Other people have said that--I don’t. The fact that I have spent time in active support of music, rather than in music itself, gives me more insight into the whole. It has provided me with the opportunity to develop an overview of how an orchestra really works . . . (and) how the orchestra can interact with the community. I think it would be better if every conductor had the opportunity to learn these things.”

Actually, Pacific Symphony has had four people in top administrative positions since 1983, three of whom reportedly left because Clark insisted upon involving himself so heavily in administrative details. Current executive director Louis G. Spisto, who assumed duties in June, says: “There have been some problems, but that’s often the nature of new relationships. Only time will tell if it’s to be a long-term one.

“I’m hopeful that Keith and I can work together. We both want what’s best for the orchestra.”

Asked whether he has in fact tried to boost the box office with more bread-and-butter repertory, Clark said “ticket sales have not entered into the argument. I remain unconvinced of a relationship between repertory and the size of ticket sales. Yes, if we had (experimental composer Iannis) Xenakis on every program, that probably would affect ticket sales--eventually.

“But in our first years, our role was different. We did not have many concerts. The Philharmonic Society was actively presenting more standard literature. We were able to provide an alternative. I had a lot of music that interested me. We didn’t seem to have to play Strauss waltzes on every concert to sell tickets. I think I took advantage of all that. . . .

“Now things are different. It’s grown beyond simply being, in a way, an extension of my own particular interests in repertory. There is a need for us to do (Dvorak’s) ‘New World’ Symphony, primarily for the orchestra itself. If you’re going to take our orchestra seriously, you have to establish an ensemble style of playing Mozart or Beethoven symphonies. And standard literature builds orchestral technique.”

In any case, Clark believes that the orchestra actually may now be returning to an “older idea of what Pacific Symphony is all about.”

“We play a variety of roles in the community,” Clark says. “We offer standard and offbeat literature, a kids’ series and make available the pool of musicians to support efforts of other groups, like the Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Pacific Chorale or Saddleback College.

“That is very important work--something we can do that the New York or the Los Angeles philharmonics can’t do. To me, this is more valuable than the rest of services, more important than raising $3.5 million and getting up to play in Carnegie Hall.”

Still, fund-raising is never far from his mind. Clark believes that lack of sufficient money has exacerbated many of the group’s difficulties in the past.

“We would have been happy to have had better personnel, better instruments, better editions of music,” he says, citing a score for Stravinsky’s “Firebird” that he bought for $50. “There are 150 mistakes in the parts--literally mistakes like B-flats for B-naturals. . . .

“Now, we’re in a better position to purchase music. But big corporate contributions haven’t started yet, and we have been living modestly.

“But if we had waited for the time to be right,” he added, “we would still be waiting.”

In June, 1985, the orchestra was able to move into its own facility, provided rent-free for 20 years by Santa Ana. The orchestra uses the former Templo Calvario at 115 E. Santa Ana Blvd., which has been designated as a historic building, as an administrative center and rehearsal facility.

But Clark estimates that it will take “upwards of $500,000” to develop the facility into what he would like.

“It’s terrific we have our own building where we can schedule our own rehearsals,” he says. “But it has a very dead (rehearsal) room. Our trombones, for instance, can blow until they’re red in the face and can’t be heard. But if they do that in the Center, they’re too loud. But I’m not offering an excuse. It’s part of our growing pains.”

Even the Center poses a problem--a major one.

“What holds back real artistic progress,” he says, “is that for any concert we do, we’ll have 2 1/2 hours in Segerstrom Hall to prepare--and for two concerts this season, not even that.

“All halls have their quirks. Segerstrom Hall is not the easiest place to play. The hall tends to brighten the sound up significantly; high frequencies seem to be accentuated. And the modern design of the hall breaks the sound up.

“That will be overcome by the configuration of the orchestra. Over a period of years, we will experiment, as we did last year, with seating, whether or not to use risers, for instance. But when you have barely time to go through the work, making judgments about the fine points isn’t what one can do.”

Clark adds, though, that he isn’t pointing the finger at the Center:.

“It’s because of scheduling difficulties there. If time were available, we would have more rehearsals. But there are only so many nights in the year. It’s our (performing) home. We have to learn to live in it and recognize the facts of life.”

Meanwhile, Clark would like to offer performances in other local venues. The group’s chamber music series, suspended this fall, will be offered at South Coast Repertory and other locations in the county, if it is revived in the spring.

Looking ahead, Clark sees a big 10th anniversary season in 1988-89, highlighted by a performance of Verdi’s Requiem with soprano Aprile Millo and music composed for the occasion.

Clark’s personal plans include setting off next month to record three compact discs with the Slovak Philharmonic in Bratislava and making a recording with the Seoul Philharmonic in Korea in June, 1988. (He will also record with the Pacific Symphony, for Pro Arte records).

“All this international stuff is nice,” he says. “But I’m much more interested in building an orchestra . . . than in building a career. I would much rather leave behind a couple of fine orchestras I helped start than a discography somewhere.”

Indeed, Clark likes to cite what he sees as his major achievement with Pacific Symphony--”assembling a group of musicians who are compatible yet individuals, which is first and foremost what an orchestra is. It’s not a board, or a marketing department, or anything like that.

“That has been a major effort. Orange County was not a county that had a lot of orchestral activity to attract instrumentalists. So it’s been a great effort to identify and recruit them. We’re not through with that. No one is ever finished with that. But we’ve been very successful in assembling players who want to be there, high level of ability, proud of what they’re doing, high morale--which is not true about every orchestra.”

Clark says there has been “virtually no turnover” in musicians in the last two years. “What there has been,” he said, “we’ve initiated.”

While it was relatively easy to build up a good wind section early on, he says, finding 16 first violins “who share the same unanimity of thought” is much more difficult.

“Virtually every one of the 16 studied somewhere else from the others. Each was trained differently and each has a different concept of sound. The core of orchestral playing is the uniformity of that string section.

“The Vienna Philharmonic is not a wonderful ensemble because its individual players are better, but because its string players have a uniformity of thought. . . . They have a tradition passed on from generations. . . . We are at a disadvantage in that we have very talented people of conflicting views.”

Clark is comfortable criticizing the group himself. But he has little use for outside critics.

“Critics are like the measles,” he says. “Everyone has to put up with them sometime, and if taken with good humor, they are rarely fatal.

“But you only get the measles once. Critics are chronic.”

Clark says he is much more inclined to take seriously the comments “good or bad” from “fellow musicians and our soloists. And I value the subjective reactions from audiences, who simply come to concerts to enjoy music.”

Keith Clark will conduct the Pacific Symphony at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa Wednesday and Friday at 8 p . m. The program will include the Suite from Stravinsky’s ballet “The Firebird,” the Prokofiev/Kennan Clarinet Concerto with soloist Richard Stoltzman , and Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony No. 9 in E minor. Tickets: $9 to $35. Information: 556-2787.

The orchestra will conduct a lecture at 7 p.m. and an open rehearsal at the Center at 8 p.m. Tuesday. Tickets are $7. Information: 556-2787.