Maj. Winchester to Command Symphony in Benefit Concert

Conducting a symphony orchestra is just the sort of avocation that viewers would have expected Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester, the snobbish New England member of the late “MASH” television series, to have pursued.

Much to his delight, David Ogden Stiers, the Shakespearean actor who gave unmistakable cachet to Maj. Winchester’s stiff character, has become a sought-after guest conductor in recent years. Saturday night, Stiers will conduct the San Diego Symphony in its annual pension benefit concert at Symphony Hall.

“I (conned) my way into (conducting) eight years ago,” Stiers explained. “At a press conference, someone asked me what I liked to do besides being an actor. I said I wanted to conduct an orchestra.”

To his surprise, Stiers was offered a shot at conducting the symphony in Portland, Maine. He half expected his affirmative reply to be politely turned down.

“I fully expected to hear, ‘I’m sorry, we do have standards’ and the topic to be dropped.”

Since that inaugural trial by fire--the concert was a live broadcast, a fund-raising telethon for the Portland Symphony--Stiers has conducted orchestras in Honolulu, Dallas, Tucson, and Eugene, Ore. Four years ago, he appeared on the podium with the San Diego Pops at Hospitality Point.

“I was hired to narrate Copland’s ‘Lincoln Portrait.’ I said they could waive the fee if they’d let me conduct.”

Stiers denied that he had harbored secret childhood aspirations to conduct.

“I despised it--I hated music generally,” he said with the kind of rhetorical flourish that put the statement’s veracity into immediate doubt.

“I had the usual round of piano and voice lessons as a kid. Music was thought of as a logical, unarguable part of one’s education which didn’t all take place in the classroom.”

From this basic training, he retains his ability to read music.

“It’s like a muscle gone flaccid from disuse,” he said. “I can read a single line (of music). Where I’m having to grow in sudden, painful increments is reading vertically. I know there are people who look at a score--18 staves straight down the page--and hear it as their eye travels. I’m not one.”

Though Stiers chose some of the fare for Saturday’s concert, including Malcolm Arnold’s comic “Grand, Grand Festival Overture” and Ives’ Variations on “America,” the remainder of the programming added by the symphony’s executive director, Wesley Brustad, has sorely tested Stiers’ musicianship.

“Wes threw in Peter Schickele’s ‘Unbegun Symphony’ and also Ibert’s ‘Divertissement,’ which I’m calling Wes’ revenge, for some offense I don’t remember doing. The Ibert is just brutal. It has some 12 time signature changes in the first eight pages.”

Back in the early 1980s, Stiers was a familiar presence at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, playing the title role in “King Lear,” Falstaff in “Henry IV, Part II,” and the lead in “Billy Bishop Goes to War.” He also directed Dale and Dunlop’s “Scapino” with Harry Groener.

Stiers returned to the Globe last week for an evening to read “Stieglitz loves O’Keefe” with Amanda McBroom. The two character-play by Lanie Robertson was part of the theater’s Play Discovery Program.

“We read it once in the afternoon and got a couple of notes from director Mark Hoffman,” Stiers said. “We came back in the evening to find that they had turned people away. The (Cassius) Carter (Center Stage) was filled, and people were seated on the stage.”

Though Stiers described the piece as a work-in-progress, he was filled with praise for Robertson’s effort.

“The evening was electric--at its best moments, we felt we were voyeurs. We all felt elevated.”

While preparing for his San Diego Symphony concert, Stiers has been commuting from Los Angeles, where he is working on a movie with William Hurt.

“We’re doing ‘The Accidental Tourist’ based on a novel by Anne Tyler. I play Hurt’s older brother.”

Stiers, the perfectionist, had nothing but compliments for his former Juilliard Drama School classmate. “He leaves nothing to chance. Bill Hurt still does vocal warm-ups before the camera rolls.”

The voluble Stiers was unable to overlook an opportunity to expand a simple observation into a philosophical argument.

“In our lives, when we overlook the basics, we get in the most trouble. Like finally acceding to the rules of Shakespeare. Instead of trying to explain Shakespeare text to an audience, just do the text; it will explain itself. Once you know those rules, you can play any role in almost any style and not contradict the major dimensions of the role.”