Symphony’s Summer Concerts On Again

Despite a loss of $80,000 last year, the Pacific Symphony will launch a second series of five summer concerts at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre in Irvine.

“We lose money on everything we do,” Louis G. Spisto, the orchestra’s executive director, said Thursday. “Everything done throughout the season has to be subsidized from contributed income. (Last summer’s) deficit was made up from our sustaining fund.”

Nonetheless, Spisto considers the series a success. “We had 2,000 subscribers last summer, and individual ticket sales ranged from 5,500 to 9,200,” he said “Most of the individuals were not regular (Pacific Symphony) concert-goers. So we broadened our audience quite a bit.”

Spisto said the budget this summer will be about the same as last year’s, $500,000. “This year, our goal is 2,500 subscribers. With that boost in ticket sales, it will break even, and with corporate support, which we’re going after, we will go over the top.”

Spisto said each of three summer guest conductors will be considered as a potential candidate for the music director’s position, which becomes vacant at the end of March. “Anyone who is on the podium will be looked at seriously over the next year,” he added.

The series starts July 4 with Jorge Mester, music director of the Pasadena Symphony, conducting a program of American music: “Rhapsody in Blue” and vocal selections by Gershwin, “Candide” Overture by Bernstein and marches by Sousa. Mezzo-soprano Kimball Wheeler and pianist Patricia Prattis Jennings will be the soloists. The program will include fireworks. Gates to the amphitheater will open at 6 p.m. All concerts will start at 8:30.

The rest of the series:

- July 22: Mester will conduct Dvorak’s “Carnival” Overture, Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” and Liszt’s First Piano Concerto, with soloist Andreas Bach.

- Aug. 12: Kate Tamarkin, newly appointed associate conductor of the Dallas Symphony, will conduct Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival” Overture, suites from Falla’s “The Three-Cornered Hat” and Stravinsky’s “Firebird,” and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, with soloist Elmar Oliveira.

- Sept. 2: Pacific’s assistant conductor, Lucas Richman, will lead Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Capriccio Espagnol,” Ravel’s “Bolero,” Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” and Christopher Fazzi’s “Western Suite,” with guitar soloist Angel Romero.

- Sept. 16: Portland (Maine) Symphony music director Toshiyuki Shimada will conduct a Tchaikovsky program including a suite from “The Sleeping Beauty,” “Capriccio Italien,” the First Piano Concerto, with soloist Leonid Kuzman, and the “1812” Overture, with cannons and fireworks.

Series tickets will go on sale in March at prices ranging from $75 to $175; tables for four at the front of the stage go for $2,500. Tickets to individual concerts will be available about 4 weeks before each. For more information, call (714) 973-1300.

In other news, the Pacific Symphony appointed eight new members to its board of directors Tuesday, bringing total board membership to 30.

The eight are David Ankenbrandt, managing partner of Lissoy Ankenbrandt & Associates, an executive-recruitment firm in Irvine; Robert Brotherton, vice president of U.S. Borax Research Corp. in Anaheim; John Fossum, an attorney in Newport Beach; Rodolfo Montejano, an attorney in Santa Ana; Ted Smith, founder and president of FileNet Corp., a document-processing firm in Costa Mesa; Michael Weaver, controller of the Orange County Register; Joseph Wheelock, an attorney in Costa Mesa, and Gregory Young, a partner with Touche Ross & Co., an accounting firm in Irvine.