Symphony Commitment Helped Convince Harrell to Accept Post as Music Adviser

The San Diego Symphony management’s efforts to re-establish the orchestra as a vital element in the community helped persuade internationally noted cellist Lynn Harrell to sign for a two-year stint as music adviser to the symphony, Harrell said Monday.

Speaking at a press conference and a subsequent interview at Symphony Hall, Harrell acknowledged his initial concern about the symphony’s recent history of financial and labor problems. Debt and a bitter labor rift between management and musicians forced the cancellation of the entire 1986-87 season.

However, the 44-year-old Harrell said the new management’s vision of the symphony’s future convinced him to take a role in shaping it, as chief artistic adviser in the absence of a music director.

Harrell said he was impressed with the symphony’s “commitment to really wanting to be a contributing artistic enterprise in the community.”

“If that’s the foundation, I’ve always had the feeling that things flow from that, and problems can be solved,” he said.

Harrell said that former music director David Atherton once asked him to become the symphony’s artist in residence but that he declined because of time pressures. Now Harrell will play a role in choosing Atherton’s successor, which the symphony expects to name by next April.

Harrell hasn’t heard the symphony play this season, but will begin his familiarization in late summer and once the winter season begins.

“I want to be here to see how the orchestra works with soloists and conductors” and to talk with the musicians, he said. Part of his plans include meeting the orchestra members to learn “what each and every one of them wants for themselves and the musical community.”

Symphony musicians have welcomed his appointment.

“The Harrell announcement has given the orchestra’s morale a real boost,” said principal bassoonist Dennis Michel. “I’ve not found one person with the slightest reservation about Harrell. Having played with the orchestra, he has our complete respect for his musicianship and his integrity. I think his appointment will help us attract better players for those positions still vacant, such as concertmaster.”

When Harrell and his family moved to Los Angeles last summer, largely to fulfill his responsibilities at USC, it marked a major change in his career.

“I felt promoted moving to Southern California,” Harrell explained. “After 16 years in New York City--being just one of many performing musicians--I suddenly felt like I had achieved star status here. That didn’t shake me, of course, because I had paid my dues.”

Harrell was an 18-year-old soloist when conductor George Szell asked him to join the Cleveland Orchestra. Two years later, he was appointed principal cellist, and he was the first occupant of USC’s Piatigorsky Chair of cello instruction, a position he held until 1971.

Was his decision to come to San Diego prompted by a desire to become a conductor?

“A conducting career is something I might look at in 10 years--maybe five,” he said after the morning press conference. “I have not been preparing to undertake conducting. (Pianist Vladimir) Ashkenazy had been studying orchestral scores at some length before he started conducting.”

Harrell acknowledged in his press conference that he has been doing some conducting in Europe recently and that he will conduct and play on an as-yet-unconfirmed date with the San Diego Symphony during the 1989-90 season.

“It would go against my sense of musical integrity to become a conductor without more serious preparation,” he said. “Those few works I do conduct are simple, (scored) mainly for strings.”

As music adviser, he will guide management in programming the 1989-90 and 1990-91 seasons, including the choice of conductors and soloists. Harrell said the programs must strike a balance between the desires of the guest conductors and the symphony’s wish to develop a younger concert audience through scheduling the more familiar classical standards. He indicated that the trick is to not lose the city’s core music enthusiasts in the process.

Harrell must shoehorn his new San Diego assignment into a busy concert and recording schedule that already takes him away from his home “a good 250 days a year.”

For six weeks this summer, Harrell’s time will be devoted to his post as artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute, a 75-member training orchestra of top students from America and Europe who are about to embark on professional careers.

Although the new symphony management is running a much tighter financial ship, it still faces a battle to persuade the city to become more involved. Last weekend’s two-day Radiothon netted “about $15,000,” symphony spokesman Les Smith said. Originally projected to raise $124,000, the event grossed “in excess of $43,000,” which Smith called “a disappointment.” Smith, who said the Radiothon figures are the lowest in 12 years, added that the symphony will focus on other fund-raising activities to meet its goal of $1.9 million in annual contributions.

Harrell said his decision to accept the San Diego position was based partly on his positive feeling about the orchestra, gained from performing with the symphony under Atherton.

“There are some orchestras, although I won’t name them, that I have played with and would not have been happy to consider such a post,” he said.