Last Classical Hurrah for Capistrano Valley Symphony Before the Switch to Pops

Don’t count the fledgling Capistrano Valley Symphony down and out yet.

The William Hall Chorale will give a benefit concert for the orchestra at 8 p.m. Saturday in the New Mission Church in San Juan Capistrano. Hall will conduct a “Splendor of Venice” program, with music by Gabrieli, Vivaldi and other Renaissance and Baroque composers. Appearing with the 125-member chorale will be a brass ensemble and organist Ladd Thomas.

Paradoxically, this concert may be the last chance for a while to associate classical repertory with the orchestra. In September, the board of directors decided to turn the orchestra into a pops ensemble.

“We’ve been approached by many organizations in different communities who really liked the idea of outdoors pops concerts,” founder and music director Donn Lawrence Mills said. “The fact is that pops concerts are popular. People like them, families go to them. Hopefully, we can make them interesting. The whole idea is to build an audience.”

Still, Mills acknowledged having personal misgivings in shifting to the new format. “I’m thinking of writing a book,” he said, “and calling it ‘Pops Concerts: Sell Out or Selling Out?’ ”

Mills founded the 60-member Capistrano Valley Symphony in January, 1985, to provide classical music to South County communities. The organization received grants of $3,000 at the end of its first season from San Juan Capistrano and $1,500 from the Mission Viejo Co.

From the first, however, the organization was plagued by poor ticket sales, and it canceled three of five concerts scheduled for the 1985-86 season. It offered one classical concert in 1986 and canceled the only classical concert planned for 1987.

The board preferred to cancel programs rather than run up deficits, Mills said, although the orchestra went about $5,000 into the red during the first season.

But all along the orchestra has been successful with pops-style concerts. The Mission Viejo Co. sponsored a free pops program in August at Lake Mission Viejo, which drew about 5,000 people; the orchestra’s free program aboard the brig Pilgrim in Dana Point Harbor in March, 1986, was a success too.

Several fund-raising activities have also helped turn the financial situation around.

“We have $5,000 in the bank now,” he said. “Our treasury is overflowing--for now.”

Mills also hopes that the appointment of Hal Joseph as the new president of the board will make a difference.

“One problem in the past has been that our board members have been very busy, and their connections with the orchestra have been time constrained,” he said. “We really need an administrator to pull all this together.

“We had hoped that the California Arts Council would help us with that. But they sent back a critique that said in effect, until we had one successful season under our belts and had an administrative organization that made sense, they didn’t feel it was appropriate or the right time to underwrite us to that extent. They were probably right. I understand that problem.”

But towering above everything is the lack of a home site for the concerts.

“Our main problem has been that we haven’t had a regular and good auditorium,” Mills said. “We will probably be giving concerts outdoors for a long time, until somebody builds us a barn or lets us come inside.

“But building a facility would take even seven or eight years anyway.”

Has he considered using the low-rent but acoustically superior Santa Ana High School auditorium?

“No, because in principal, we started the orchestra to be available to South Orange County, and that’s what we want to do,” he said. “We want to keep our goal and our mission before us.”

Mills said current plans are for the orchestra to offer five or six concerts, “probably beginning around the first of the year.”

“Our pops programs would be outdoor things. But we’re going to try to get some regular classical concerts going too. We’re looking at the Miramar Theater in San Clemente and at Laguna Beach High School. We’ll probably have to scale the orchestra down to 35 players in order to do that. But we want to get going.”

The William Hall Chorale will present the “Splendor of Venice” program to benefit the Capistrano Valley Symphony at 8 p.m. on Saturday at the new Mission Church in San Juan Capistrano. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 senior citizens and children younger than 14. For information, call (714) 493-7682.