Music Director Takes Own Advice, Quits While at Top

On the local classical music scene, the La Jolla Chamber Music Society is a happy anomaly. Those organizations that have survived the rigors of funding the musical arts in the 1980s have done so by either cutting back their performing schedules or by resorting to bland, unchallenging programming. Continuous expansion, however, has been the byword of the La Jolla society.

Last week, as the organization was preparing for the third annual installment of its successful and critically praised summer chamber music festival, SummerFest ‘88, the society’s executive director Geoffrey Brooks announced his resignation. In a city where directors depart amid crisis and controversy, Brooks’ resignation was indeed anomalous.

When asked why he resigned now, Brooks replied without hesitation that he was leaving while he was on top, having accomplished at the society everything he had hoped to accomplish. It was, he said, the same advice he had given Keith Clark, his former colleague and music director of the Orange County Pacific Orchestra.

“I told Keith (to bail out) two years ago, when Pavarotti sang at the San Diego Sports Arena and Keith’s orchestra accompanied him. I was stage manager for that production, and Keith and I went out afterwards. ‘Get out when you’re on top. It’s your baby, but you’ve got to get out, otherwise they’re going to take it away from you.’ ”

Although the prediction about Clark came true in February, 1988, when the Pacific Symphony’s board voted not to extend Clark’s contract, the 32-year-old Brooks appears to have had little to fear from his own board. Incoming board president Marie Olesen lauded Brooks’ accomplishments as executive director, and seven-year board veteran William Purves echoed that praise.

“He has led board opinion in many areas, and the expansion of the society’s programs can be attributed to his leadership and persistence,” said Purves. “He pushed the board to move ahead as fast as the organization could.”

Moving ahead during Brooks’ tenure has included adding two high-profile performance series in downtown San Diego and developing its own summer series in La Jolla. If the society’s solvency and continuous expansion have been the envy of other groups, this solid position was not what Brooks found when he was hired in 1982.

“When I started, we had just finished presenting the first Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. With the addition of that single two-week project, the society’s budget doubled from $100,000 to $200,000.”

While that summer festival was an artistic coup, the society went $80,000 in the hole.

“At that time, the society could have gone either way,” Brooks said. “With the $80,000 deficit, it could have folded up and disappeared. Its three full-time staff was cut back to my job alone, and I took a cut in salary.”

Dissolving the La Jolla Chamber Orchestra, the society’s own orchestra, which had performed a few times each season on the Sherwood Auditorium series, was another economy that helped the organization survive.

“It was sad when we had to lose our orchestra,” admitted former board president Merrel Olesen. “And it was an unpopular move among the local musicians.”

As a musician--Brooks plays violin and viola, and is an accomplished timpanist--the newly hired executive director urged the board to reconsider its decision to eliminate its own chamber orchestra. According to Brooks, some board members who supportered a local chamber orchestra left the board when the La Jolla Chamber Orchestra was terminated.

“There has always been a contingent of individuals who really felt the society’s role was to present San Diego musicians, rather than be a presenter of outside artists. You cannot really do both, however. Our summer festival is so far the only way we felt we can do it and keep the quality level high.”

Importing orchestras and musical ensembles to perform locally, according to Brooks, is much more efficient than cultivating the home-grown product.

“The reason is simple,” he said. “When you have local musicians, you are dealing with preparation time, rehearsals, egos and personalities--who works well with whom. You have unions to deal with, licensing fees, librarians; you have to deal with unemployment claims and meet a payroll. Then you have to coordinate your performing schedule with the symphony, opera, and ballet. It’s much easier to pick up the phone, book a date for a group on its West Coast tour, and choose one of the three programs they offer.”

From the marketing standpoint, he noted, the imports have all the cachet.

“People say, ‘Oh, the Guarneri String Quartet--wonderful!’,” he said. “But if you are presenting, say, four principals of the San Diego Symphony, they yawn.”

This fall, the International Orchestra Series, the society’s newest endeavor, will bring four world-class orchestras to the Civic Theatre, and the society’s other downtown series, the Celebrity Series, will present the Israel Philharmonic.

“The International Orchestra series definitely will be competition for the San Diego Symphony, unless the symphony improves. Especially since (former music director David) Atherton left, the symphony’s standard has been one of mediocrity.”

Alluding to the concertmaster and principals who left the local orchestra during the canceled season, Brooks said, “They will need players (the caliber of) Andres Cardenes, Peter Rofe, and Jerry Folsom to get back to where they were under Atherton.”

Asked to amplify his assertion that the society’s orchestral imports would provide competition to the local symphony, Brooks said: “It will not so much provide competition as it will challenge the symphony to improve. In our research, we have found two distinct markets for orchestral music in the city: one is the Los Angeles Philharmonic audience and the other is the San Diego Symphony audience. We are appealing to the former and to new people, those who are looking for quality orchestral performances.”

From Brooks’ perspective, his complaints about mediocre playing by local musicians is not mere carping. He sees every poor performance as diminishing the potential audience for classical music. He related a conversation he overheard while attending a lackluster San Diego Chamber Orchestra concert this past season at Sherwood Auditorium, where the society’s oldest series takes place.

“At intermission, I overheard the woman say, ‘There’s something missing in this concert,’ to which the man responded, ‘Well, I guess that classical music just isn’t for us.’ They did not come back after intermission. That was a lost opportunity to get people back in that hall again because they were turned off. It’s so tough to get people there in the first place.

“The whole aim of my years at the society has been to build up audience loyalty and trust,” Brooks said. “Here are two organizations (the San Diego Symphony and the San Diego Chamber Orchestra) that have abused it.”

Brooks said his only regret about his tenure with the society is having lost the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra series at the East County Performing Arts Center in El Cajon.

“We were presenting quality concerts in a good venue, serving a part of the county where there were no series, although some of those people now come into San Diego to attend the Celebrity Series. I would have loved to have been able to leave the society with programs in all parts of the county, as well as downtown San Diego and Sherwood.”

Brooks remained evasive regarding his professional intentions.