Keck Grant to Aid Philharmonic’s Educational Plans

Educational activities have long been in a state of cautious growth at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. With the announcement that the W.M. Keck Foundation has awarded a new grant of $1.2 million to the orchestra’s education department, that growth gets a boost.

In acknowledging the positive effect the grant will have on ongoing programs, Linda Muggeridge, the Philharmonic’s administrator of educational activities, also pointed the way to future expansion of the orchestra’s services to young people.

“This season, we have inaugurated a pilot program called Meet Us for Music, which will now benefit from the grant,” Muggeridge said.

“In 1989-90, we will be able to implement this program, which brings chamber ensembles into 30 schools we have identified as underserved in music.

“But, after all the schools have been exposed to chamber music, the students are bused to a central location, where the entire Philharmonic plays a concert for them. This is the last phase in their musical year.”

Because the Keck grant is spread out over three years, Muggeridge says, “it will allow us to expand significantly all of our programs.”

These include: Symphonies for Youth; free, in-school concerts by the full, or a reduced Philharmonic; Open House at the Music Center; Open House at Hollywood Bowl; High School Night at the Music Center; the Music Mobile, and the Bronislaw Kaper award auditions.

Muggeridge explained that Open House at the Music Center is “just like Symphonies for Youth--Saturday morning concerts in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Except, they are for very young listeners, children between the ages of 3 and 6. And we limit attendance to 1,000 (in the 3,265-seat Pavilion), so that all the children can see the activity. We did two of these this year, and will expand to four next season.”

Another benefit of the Keck grant, Muggeridge said, is that the association will be able to raise the prize money for the Kaper award auditions.

Lastly, she said, “We will now be able to add another person to our education department staff, in a training position very badly needed.”

CELTIC LEGEND--Wagner fans might be surprised but they shouldn’t be disappointed when the Boston Camerata brings its original version of the medieval Celtic legend “Tristan and Iseult” to Brentwood, tonight at 7.

The Massachusetts-based, period-instrument ensemble, under the direction of Joel Cohen, recently won the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque for its Erato recording of the work, which is drawn mainly from the few surviving manuscripts of the Middle Ages.

“It’s a very popular love story that has all the passion, neurosis, sex, violence and romance of the 20th Century,” said Cohen.

“So, I thought it would be fascinating to stage it, since so much of it had been filtered in Wagner’s ‘Tristan und Isolde.’ Wagner was able to handle some aspects of the story, but not all of it, because some of the medieval episodes look like something out of ‘Dallas.’ ”

Cohen added he wants to give lovers of Wagner’s 19th-Century opera “an insight into the original material” upon which the German composer based his work, while at the same time keeping intact what he believes is “a very beautiful, powerful legend in which you can find bits of yourself.”

As part of the Chamber Music in Historic Sites program sponsored by the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s College, the Camerata will give the West Coast premiere of its “Tristan” in the Charles W. Coe Library.

The featured performers will be tenor John Fleagle (Tristan), sopranos Anne Azema (Iseult the Blonde) and Ellen Hargis (Brangane) and countertenor Michael Colliver (King Mark).

NEXT SEASON--Scheduled to perform on the two, just-announced 1989-90 weekend dance series in Royce Hall at UCLA are these troupes: Sydney Dance Company (Oct. 13-14); the Jamison Project ensemble (Oct. 27-28); Paul Taylor Dance Co. (Nov. 11); BeBe Miller (Jan. 26-27); Kabuki Dance (Feb. 2-3); Pilobolus (Feb. 16-17), and Trisha Brown & Co. (May 4-5, 1990).

COMING TOGETHER--Earl Carlyss, Dorothy DeLay, Earl Kim and Murry Sidlin are the four musicians and Aspen Festival faculty members who will participate in the seventh annual Symposium on Medical Problems of Musicians and Dancers at Snowmass, Colo., Aug. 3-6, under joint auspices of the Aspen Festival and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Information: (800) 762-8173. . . . The Joffrey Ballet will give the opening performances in the 1989 China Arts Festival in Beijing, Sept. 16-20, and will also serve as the official representative of the United States at the festival celebrating the 40th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. The festival runs through Oct. 5.

Calendar intern Frank A. Fisher contributed research to this column.