Concert Series Becomes Child’s Play Under Sidlin

The popular, smooth-talking conductor Murry Sidlin is back in town this week to lead five San Diego Symphony concerts aimed at students and their parents.

“These kinds of concerts are the second most important thing a symphony orchestra does,” Sidlin said. “Of course, our primary duty is to play subscription concerts and to do them well. But next in line has to be the audience-building, community outreach concerts.”

This week’s program, titled “What Makes Music American?,” includes some well-known touchstones of American orchestral music, such as Gershwin’s “An American in Paris,” Ives’ “The Unanswered Question,” and Copland’s suite from the ballet “Billy the Kid.” Four concerts will be played Wed. and Thur. mornings for 4th- through 6th-grade students who will be bussed in to Symphony Hall. Saturday’s 3 p.m. performance will be the first “Family Series” concert, open to the public and intended for youngsters and their parents.

“It’s important to have the parents there as standard bearers,” the conductor noted. Sidlin, former music director of both the Long Beach Symphony and the New Haven Symphony, is known for his skill at narrating and designing children’s concerts.

“I love to talk about music,” he admitted, adding that his early experiences in music education prepared him well for this specialized facet of conducting.

“I taught music in the public schools for awhile in the 1960s. A lot of what I do in young people’s concerts has come about as a result of what the kids have taught me, how they hear, and what they don’t hear. I think a symphony concert should be like a major art museum on a busy Sunday afternoon, attracting people of all ages and stations.”

Sidlin’s philosophy is not based on the assumption that he has some secret information to impart to the unwashed masses. Rather, he helps audiences affirm their own reactions to the music they are about to hear.

“Their own impressions are valid. We may all be hearing the same musical sounds, but no one is touched the same way. I want to dispel the notion that listeners need to turn to the critic to find out if they should have enjoyed the music.”

Victor Margolis, the erudite bookseller and Hillcrest’s answer to the late Sol Hurok, has added a new wrinkle to the weekend performances at his Words and Music gallery. While the musicians take their customary intermission break, Margolis and his caterer Jim Higgins will set out a buffet spread for the audience.

Starting with this Friday’s classical guitar recital by George Svoboda, Margolis will add food to his usual format of music and conversation offered in the Fourth Ave. bookstore and gallery.

“The buffet will allow folks to mingle with each other or get off with the books, if they look more attractive than the crowd attending that night,” Margolis explained.

Due to a ruling by the local fire marshal, Margolis is required to limit the crowds in his tony bookstore to a mere 49 people.

“That number includes me, my assistant, and the performers,” he explained. “But I really don’t mind. It makes the concerts seem more elite.”

There is no free lunch, of course. Margolis said that the ticket prices would be increased $5 to cover the cost of the buffet.

Although the New York Philharmonic announced last week that it would no longer broadcast its subscription concerts from Avery Fisher Hall, San Diego classical radio station KFSD (FM 94.1) has already lined up a substitute. And they did not have to scrounge for reruns of the Toledo Symphony, either.

“We’ve been able to replace New York’s Monday night slot with the Orchestre de Paris, whose music director is Daniel Barneboim,” explained Kingsley McLaren, the radio station’s program director. KFSD programming has featured the syndicated broadcast of a different American orchestra every evening of the week except Sunday.

The New York Philharmonic lost its weekly broadcast when its sponsor, Exxon, pulled out. According to McLaren, the only other comparable recent cancellation of a syndicated series happened nine months ago when AT&T; stopped funding the program “Carnegie Hall Tonight,” a one-hour condensed re-broadcast of concerts given in Carnegie Hall.

“Carnegie Hall’s management kept that series going hoping to find underwriting, but gave up after six months. It was too expensive for them to continue without a sponsor.”

McLaren believes the sponsors for the other orchestra broadcasts carried by KFSD were unwavering in their commitment to their respective orchestras. Not surprisingly, General Motors has been the steadfast sponsor of the Detroit Symphony. Cigna Insurance underwrites the Philadelphia Orchestra, and broadcasts by the Chicago Symphony are presented by the brokerage house John Nuveen & Co.

“The Orchestre de Paris is IT&T;’s first adventure in broadcast underwriting, so I would imagine it will be a long-term commitment,” McLaren said.

When it comes to selecting unusual orchestral repertory, the Jewish Community Center Orchestra’s music director David Amos has the knack. His Sunday concert at Temple Solel in Encinitas will feature Paul Creston’s Accordion Concerto performed by Italian-born accordion virtuoso Nelli Antonio Peruch. Creston, an American composer of some note, retired to Rancho Bernardo, where he lived until his death two years ago.

Amos is clever enough to keep his audiences happy, however. For those who might find an accordion concerto a bit bizarre, he has included on the same program Beethoven’s redoubtable Fifth Symphony.