L.A. Native Goes UK / LA

For Robert Ziegler, there is a certain amount of irony involved in his impending Monday Evening Concert. After all, the London-based conductor--who is leading a program of British music as part of the UK/LA ’88 Festival--is a Los Angeles native.

More than six years ago, the locally trained musician moved his career to London. “I found the opportunities in Los Angeles for what I wanted to do a bit limited,” he says. “I was just amazed when I got to London at the variety and extent of the musical life.”

Ziegler has capitalized on the opportunities that he found and has made London his legal place of residence. He has established his own Matrix Ensemble (not to be confused with the Los Angeles-based group of the same name) and conducted the Royal Philharmonic and London Sinfonietta. Recently he won the third prize in the Grzegorsz Fitelberg Conductor’s Competition in Poland, and will return to conduct in Gdansk as a result.

Currently, he is busy with Opera ‘80, a regional touring company, with which he is conducting performances of “The Abduction from the Seraglio” and “Carmen.” The theater is an important element in Ziegler’s career, and an interest he comes by quite naturally, as the son of former American Ballet Theatre ballerina Miriam Golden.

“When I first went to Europe to work, it was to conduct for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet and the Deutsche Oper ballet,” Ziegler says. But he also notes that “the world of dance, for a conductor, is quite limited.”

Ziegler’s MEC program Monday night--his fourth for the venerable series at the County Museum of Art--matches two symphonically oriented works with two theatrical pieces. One of the great rewards of conducting, for him, is “to be able to put together a program that is well-balanced and puts things in a coherent context.”

Ziegler and the MEC Ensemble will begin with Britten’s Opus 1 Sinfonietta and proceed through the West Coast premiere of Harrison Birtwistle’s “Secret Theatre” and the U.S. premieres of Robert Saxton’s Chamber Symphony and Judith Weir’s “The Consolation of Scholarship.”

“I wanted to include a composer who is clearly established in the public’s mind,” Ziegler says of Britten. “At the other end of the spectrum is Judith Weir’s ‘Consolation of Scholarship.’ It is a short opera for one character, based on Chinese Yuan dramas. She (Weir) uses tonality in a really distinctive and interesting way, and above all, in a very dramatic way.”

Saxton, Ziegler says, “is very much influenced by the more rigorous style of the Second Viennese School . . . in very exciting ways,” while the older Birtwistle “has built his own system. The only person I can compare him with is Messiaen.”

For the conductor, the concert “is a really wonderful opportunity. I find that the cultures of Los Angeles and London are really very far apart.”

THE SOUND OF MONEY: Pianist/performance artist Sandra Tsing Loh--she performed the much-ballyhooed freeway serenade during the Fringe Festival last year--has prepared a grand new piece. During her aptly titled “Self-Promotion” performance Friday morning at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, she will premiere “27 Dogwood Drive,” during which 1,000 $1 bills will be flung out over the site. The audience is invited to catch as catch can.

ROCKING THE CRADLE: CalArts is producing performances of Marc Blitzstein’s working man’s epic, “The Cradle Will Rock,” Wednesday through Saturday. Faculty member Robert Benedetti directs the production, staged at the Morgan Wixson Theatre in Santa Monica. Information: (818) 362-2315.

BALLET BENEFIT: The Saint Joseph Ballet Company will offer its annual benefit concert, entitled “Happy Together” this year, at Santa Ana High School Saturday evening. The 5-year-old company provides dance instruction for minority and underprivileged youth in Orange County. Information: (714) 541-8314.

EHLERS REMEMBERED: Alice Ehlers, longtime professor of harpsichord at USC who died in 1981, will be honored with a commemorative concert today. Violinist Eudice Shapiro, flutist Roger Stevens and harpsichordist Malcolm Hamilton perform at 4 p.m. in Hancock Auditorium. Information: (213) 743-7111.