Some Groups Glad They Skipped Harmonic Convergence at Center

And what about groups that decided not to use the Center, but to stay put?

John Larry Granger, conductor of the South Coast Symphony, said the orchestra was invited to play the Center and that its board of directors “was very good about making the decision not to go.”

“The evidence,” Granger noted, “seems to be that local groups (that did use the center) have not been in better shape financially than they used to be.”

However, Granger does hope to play there. “We are simply not in a responsible position to be there until we have built enough audience support to justify the move into a 3,000-seat theater,” he said. “Our long-range plan does include our performing there, probably in three to five years. For us, it’s not the right situation now. But the Center itself is terrific.”

The orchestra, which is based in Costa Mesa, has been playing at Santa Ana High School auditorium, which seats 1,500, and at Orange Coast College. Its subscription list has held steady at 600. Its budget was about $300,000 for 1987-88 and is projected to rise to $350,000 for 1988-89, officials said.

The Orange County Chamber Orchestra, which draws about 500 subscribers and operates on an $80,000 annual budget, is not planning a move to the Center anytime soon. The ensemble performs on the Orange campus of Loyola Marymount University and at South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa.

“I feel that an orchestra the size of ours--25--is lost there,” said conductor Micah Levy, adding that if the Center ever decides to add a smaller, second hall, as has been discussed, “I will be interested in going there.”

The chamber group is not planning to increase its budget and does not expect to expand its subscriber base. “The U.S. economy isn’t getting better,” Levy said.

Ami Porat, the founding director of the Mozart Camerata, says he believes that his group’s decision to stay at Santa Ana High School has paid off handsomely. “We’d like to be there 200 years,” Porat said.

“We have grown artistically,” he said, “and the size of our subscribers has grown” to a current total of 300. Given what he sees as “the current rate of interest and word-of-mouth,” he expects the number to double for 1988-89. The chamber group projects a $250,000 budget for 1988-89, a 60% increase, according to spokesman Leslie S. Cotton.

Porat realizes that the Center dominates the county’s music scene. “But there are in New York many successful off-Broadway theaters,” he said. “We are off-Center.”