California-Style Iconoclasts in Concert

Two weeks ago, the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group brought in Olivier Knussen to lead a program of new British music for the UK/LA Festival. Monday night, the repertory is home-style, when Philharmonic assistant conductor David Alan Miller guides the New Music Group in “California Iconoclasts.”

“ Iconoclast is the important word,” says Jeffrey Gall, whose “Beg, Plead, Scream and Rant” was commissioned for the concert. “Iconoclasm is probably one of the only categories in which I would put my own work.”

The 25-year-old composer is a senior at USC, where he has often felt thwarted by the traditional orientation of the instruction. “‘Beg, Plead, Scream and Rant’ is kind of a culmination of a lot of the frustration of studying within the system,” he says, adding that it is “basically not an angry piece at all, but a release of the frustration.”

Gall comes from a pop/jazz background, and never really listened to classical music until he came to USC. Asked if this will be apparent in his new composition, scored for four winds, four strings, piano and percussion, he responds affirmatively. “I think so--the use of riffs is very prominent in this piece.”

Leon Milo, a 31-year-old Juilliard-trained percussionist now working in Los Angeles, is almost as new to composition as Gall, though he comes from a very different perspective. “I was really primarily a performer until 1984, when I came back here to write,” Milo says. He now studies independently with Leonard Stein, the director of the Schoenberg Institute.

The New Music Group also commissioned Milo’s “Verset” for the concert, though not till the last minute. He received the commission on Dec. 15, and just finished the work two weeks ago.

Iconoclasm is not an important issue to Milo. “I don’t feel like I’m destroying anything,” he reports, describing “Verset” as a fairly traditional set of atonal variations, for 10 instrumentalists. “My influences--the things I like to listen to, which get into my music--are the music of Berio, Boulez and Birtwhistle.”

The other “California Iconoclasts” are Conlon Nancarrow, whose Piece No. 2 for Small Orchestra will get its first West Coast hearing, and John Cage and Lou Harrison, represented by percussion quartets.

THE SOUND OF GLASNOST: The Moscow Conservatory of Music and the Soviet Ministry of Culture have joined Oberlin Conservatory and AFS Intercultural Programs in establishing the new American-Soviet Youth Orchestra. A concert tour of both countries will begin at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Aug. 5.

ABBADO CONDUCTS: Music director Claudio Abbado is leading the Chamber Orchestra of Europe on a nine-city tour of the United States, which ends at Royce Hall on Friday. The program lists Schubert’s Third Symphony, works by Ives and Stravinsky, and Schumann’s Piano Concerto, with Cecile Licad the soloist.

ABT FOR KIDS: American Ballet Theatre is offering a free program for children, Saturday morning at Shrine Auditorium. Artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov and TV character ALF will introduce the event, which promises ice cream and T-shirts as well as lectures and pas de deux. Tickets must be picked up in person at the Shrine box office prior to the event, to which adults must be accompanied by children.

CONTRACT RENEWALS: Speight Jenkins, general director of the Seattle Opera, has had his contract renewed through June, 1993. Jenkins took over in 1983, and reversed a pattern of declining subscriptions and funding support.

At the San Diego Opera, general director Ian Campbell has had his contract extended, also through June, 1993.

LASALLE ADIEU: The LaSalle String Quartet, just a year shy of its 40th anniversary, has disbanded, according to an announcement by Deutsche Grammophon. The American ensemble, noted for championing the music of this century, had recorded for DG since 1967.