The Open Option : New Mexico Orchestra Chief Keeps Door Ajar but Won’t Pursue Pacific Symphony

As politicians throughout the country make last-ditch major efforts to woo voters, Neal Stulberg, music director of the New Mexico Symphony, won’t even toss his hat into the race for top musical post at the Pacific Symphony.

“I haven’t applied for the position and am not currently a candidate,” Stulberg said from Albuquerque. “I’m very involved with building the New Mexico Symphony. This is my fourth season here. The next few years will be critical for the development of this orchestra, and I’m very devoted to seeing that process of development.”

Still, like any good politician, he isn’t closing the door on his candidacy: “At the same time, one’s eyes are always open to a situation somewhere else.”

Nonetheless, Stulberg, the first of three visitors to guest-conduct the Pacific Symphony this year, will be scrutinized by the orchestra’s board, musicians and the public as a possible successor to founding music director Keith Clark, whose tenure with the orchestra ends with the 1988-89 season.

What would the Pacific get if it drafted Stulberg away from Albuquerque?

First off, it would get a young conductor who has won national recognition.

In June, Stulberg, 34, was one of three conductors to receive the prestigious Seaver/NEA Conductors Award, given every 2 years. Each will receive $50,000 over a 4-year period to pursue projects that will help their musical development. (The other winners were Catherine Comet, 45, music director of the Grand Rapids Symphony, and Jahja Ling, 37, music director of the Tampa-based Florida Orchestra.)

Stulberg has also improved the New Mexico Symphony sufficiently that it has been chosen by the Santa Fe-based Western States Arts Foundation as its touring orchestra for 1989-90. (No California tours are planned, however.)

Moreover, Stulberg is a known, local quality. He spent 4 years in Los Angeles, 3 as conductor of the Los Angeles-based Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra (1981-83), and served as Exxon/Arts Endowment Assistant Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1983-84, during the tenure of Carlo Maria Guilini.

Stulberg described himself as a conductor “who likes the process of rehearsing and the dialogue that can come out of an open approach to interpretation with the players.”

He is equally mindful of his audiences.

“What we try to do here (in New Mexico) is give our audiences enough background so that when something unfamiliar or new is presented (on a program) they don’t feel like they’re swimming in deep water. . . . My real goal when I present a program is obviously to communicate something to an audience. What one might lose in correctness and purity, I would hope, one would gain in interest.”

Stulberg said he is interested in the authentic-performance-practices movement but “remains deeply suspicious of it. I would feel very badly if we’ve reached the point where all we need to do is follow the rules and make instant Bach and instant Mozart.”

The third son of a musical family in Detroit, Stulberg began musical studies as a pianist and violist. At Harvard, however, he was a social studies major--”I had always been very interested in politics and history,” he said--although he continued to perform and study music.

During his senior year at Harvard, he was elected to conduct the Bach Society Orchestra, a student-run chamber ensemble. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who was a classmate, was his first soloist.

“My first exposure to conducting was a kind of practicum,” he said. “I seem to remember thrashing around like a kind of maniac--as I think a lot of conductors do their first time--trying with every ounce of my body to get the music I wanted from that group.”

But that experience ended the dual track of his studies.

“I finally surrendered after my last year of college and haven’t looked back since,” he said. “In retrospect, it was something that was such a passion, which came to me so easily that it was probably inevitable that I would try to pursue it as a career.”

After graduating, he received a fellowship from Harvard to travel to Europe for further musical study and enrolled at the Santa Cecilia Academy of Rome to study with Frank Ferrara, one of the great conducting teachers.

Later, he earned a degree in conducting from the University of Michigan and went on to attend the Juilliard School of Music in New York. From there he joined the Young Musicians Foundation in Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Then New Mexico beckoned. Despite New Mexico’s remoteness from the country’s major cultural centers, Stulberg said working in the Southwest hasn’t hurt his career:

“In my case, isolation has worked overwhelmingly to the good. The capability to truly develop something that is my own--where I’m given a very broad mandate in terms of programming, in terms of soloists, in terms of agenda for the orchestra--is, I think, a fairly rare thing. Opportunities (also) have begun to come from major orchestras for guest-conducting.”

“That is, of course, very important, but at this point in my career,” he said, with a diplomatically savvy comment worthy of a political candidate, “it is very stimulating and helpful for me to be in a place where I feel that I can make a big impact.”

Neal Stulberg will conduct the Pacific Symphony at 8 tonight and Thursday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. The program will include Vivaldi’s Piccolo Concerto, with soloist Louise DiTullio; Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, with soloist Elmar Oliveira, and Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony. Tickets: $9 to $49. Information: (714) 973-1300.