Vollmer: Philharmonic Society Has a Slight Problem

Erich Vollmer, executive director of the Orange County Philharmonic Society, feels slighted and he can’t take it anymore.

When it comes to presenting major touring orchestras at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, who gets the credit? he asks.

The Center, he answers.

“It’s just not fair,” Vollmer said Thursday. “We select the orchestras. We engage the orchestras. We pay the orchestras. We advertise the orchestras.”

Yet, at the annual meeting of the Orange County Performing Arts Center last week, president Thomas R. Kendrick made only passing mention of the Philharmonic Society while cataloguing a cross-section of successful programs from ballet to musical theater to orchestral concerts.

“My objection,” Vollmer said, “is that the public doesn’t have the correct perception as to who is making the visiting orchestras possible. . . . Tom assumes that because he will say to the Philharmonic Society that you can have this or that date for this or that orchestra that he has made some artistic selection.”

What is Kendrick’s reaction?

“Of course, the Philharmonic Society is the primary presenter of touring orchestras,” he said. “But it is dependent upon the Center making critical adjustments in its schedule for tour dates that may have to be set far in advance.”

In other words, a one-day booking can throw off an entire week’s scheduling. This, he noted, involves artistic as well as administrative judgments.

“The Center has often compromised its scheduling flexibility to make available one of the finest orchestral series in the country,” Kendrick said. “We respect the Philharmonic Society and we believe we have formed a strong working relationship with it.”