Timely Lesson for Daniel Lewis’ Students

One of the lessons the students at the summertime Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute learn right away, says Daniel Lewis, is “how tight the professional musician’s schedule must be.”

And that lesson has been learned well by the current crop of young players as Lewis has worked at the institute a fortnight. He presides tonight over the second concert of the summer by the Institute Orchestra, at 7:30 in Hollywood Bowl.

“A string section rehearsal was planned for Saturday night,” the 63-year-old conductor and USC professor says. “Then Lynn Harrell (the institute’s 1988 director) called and asked me to cancel. The students, he said, were ‘just dead.’ They probably wouldn’t have gotten a lot out of that rehearsal.”

Limited rehearsal time, “ very limited rehearsal time,” Lewis says, is another professional fact of life the instituters are learning to cope with.

Lewis is quick to add, “I enjoy working with young people”--and that he values the rewards of their playing a program as demanding as the one tonight. It lists Wagner’s “Meistersinger” Prelude, to be led by conducting fellow Stefan Sanderling; Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, with soloist Gary Graffman and conducted by fellow Kirk Muspratt, and Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, to be led by Lewis.

Lewis explains that the demanding Ravel assignment went to Muspratt because Muspratt is “the most experienced” of the 1988 conducting fellows; this fall, the 33-year-old conductor becomes assistant to Leonard Slatkin at the St. Louis Symphony.

In August, Lewis returns to the Bowl to lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic in two programs, one at which Philharmonic trumpeter Thomas Stevens will be soloist in a Baroque concerto. On the other, the soloist will be violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, who will play the G-minor Concerto by Bruch.

Again, a tight schedule will keep participants on their toes: There will be only three rehearsals for two programs, which include Dvorak’s “New World” and Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphonies. “It’s not impossible,” the conductor says, adding, “Sometimes, with an orchestra as experienced as the Philharmonic, a lot of wonderful things can just happen at the performance. Still, when the rehearsals are at a minimum, one tends to sacrifice a lot in personal viewpoint, because there is no time to settle on fine points.”

PEOPLE: Pianists Daniel Pollack and Mona Golabek and violinist Kathleen Lenski are among the soloists at the first three concerts of the Strawberry Creek Festival in Malibu, beginning Thursday. Saturday night, Pollack plays Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto with the Festival Symphony, conducted by festival founder Yehuda Gilad in Smothers Theatre at Pepperdine University, site of the series. Golabek appears on the chamber music program, Friday night. And at the opening event, a Baroque concert, Thursday, Lenski plays Bach’s Concerto in E. See Listings for details. . . . Marking the 70th birthday of Leonard Bernstein, Aug. 25, a weeklong celebration is planned at the Tanglewood Festival in eastern Massachusetts. Besides the Boston Symphony, the participants will include Dame Gwyneth Jones, Victor Borge, Van Cliburn, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Christa Ludwig, Yo-Yo Ma, Frederica von Stade and Mstislav Rostropovich. . . . Violinist Miriam Fried makes her Hollywood Bowl debut, playing the Brahms Concerto, Thursday night, when the L.A. Philharmonic will be conducted by Yuri Temirkanov. . . . Thomas Stacy, English hornist of the New York Philharmonic, returns to Cal State Northridge to give his 10th consecutive summer English Horn Seminar on that arcane instrument. The seven-day seminar begins with a recital by Stacy and organist Samuel John Swartz, next Sunday night at 7:30 at Trinity Lutheran Church, 18425 Kittridge, Reseda.