Pacific Symphony Taking Classics to Latino Community

Ingmar Bergman’s magical film of Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” begins with a scene few can forget. During the Overture, the camera pans the faces of an ethnically and culturally diverse audience, and for a few moments, everyone is taken by the music to a single place.

This United Nations-esque vision is not likely to take place in a real U.S. concert hall, however. Crowds for such music, especially in Orange County, tend to be rich, old--and white.

Is there systematic exclusion of minorities? Rodolfo Montejano of Santa Ana thinks the barriers are more psychological and financial than racial.

“In a sense, it’s intimidation,” said Montejano, a lawyer, who compared attending a first such concert “to going into an expensive restaurant for the first time.” People avoid that uncomfortable feeling.

Still, Montejano thinks that too few organizations make “good-faith efforts . . . to attract (minorities) into the arts or to the (Orange County) Performing Arts Center. Classical music generally has not been made accessible to Hispanics.”

Montejano and Pacific Symphony are addressing the issue by taking music to the people and providing free concerts.

Current plans include three Latino outreach concerts, beginning tonight at St. Jeanne de Lestonnac School in Tustin. The program will honor Father Jaime Soto, the Diocese of Orange’s newly appointed vicar for the Latino community.

The second concert will be on Mexican Independence Day, Sept. 16, at Centennial Park in Santa Ana; the third will be part of the Las Posadas Festival Dec. 16 at Santa Ana Stadium. Attendance tonight will be limited to 600, however, because of the size of the auditorium.

The soft-spoken Montejano is chairman of Pacific Symphony’s Latino advisory committee and chairman of the Santiago Club, a 4-year-old countywide organization that aims “to enhance and advance the interests of the Hispanics in Orange County in education, in economics, in the job field and in the arts, in culture.”

The 120-member club, based in Santa Ana, pays for programs to fight drug abuse, offers scholarships and provides other social service activities to county Latinos. It also extends support to South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa and Bowers Museum in Santa Ana.

With aid from the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the club will sponsor Pacific Symphony’s concerts for $8,000 to $13,000 each. The orchestra will underwrite each concert for about $20,000.

Montejano hopes that introducing Latinos to the orchestra will lead them to become subscribers and donors.

Are these efforts a bit upscale for low-income Latinos? Montejano defended the effort: “We are very pleased with what we are doing (in social service areas). Now we also feel it necessary to make an entry into the arts.

“Economically, you first worry about the basics. . . . As you progress through the economic and social spectrum, you start looking at other programs. And there is a substantial amount of discretionary income in the Hispanic area. We’re just trying to redirect some of that discretionary income and direct interest into the classics and the arts and the orchestra.”

Future plans include an in-school instrument loan program for students who cannot afford them. “Many Hispanic students have beautiful talent (that) needs to be cultivated,” he said. “Without access to instruction and instruments, that talent goes to waste.”

So Latinos benefit by having easier access to classical music. What’s in it for the orchestra? For one thing, outreach programs look very good to state and federal funding agencies; the California Arts Council, for instance, recognizes outreach efforts as a criterion for determining grants.

What measures has Montejano taken to assure that Pacific Symphony’s efforts are not mere tokenism? “I serve on the board of directors of the orchestra, and as a board member I am going to ensure that it is not tokenism,” he said. “But in my discussion with the executive director (Louis G. Spisto) and members of the board, I sense a total good-faith effort to truly achieve this object. The leadership of the orchestra came to us in the community, asked us to help and to tell them how to reach the community. We helped create and implement the concept.

“If it were not done in good faith, we would not be with the project. Our track record has established all that.”

Spisto said the philosophy of the Latino arts program is “to broaden the audience for classical music. There is an audience for classical music that exists beyond the walls of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, and, we believe, it is our responsibility to become involved directly.

“The Hispanic community is a very large and important component of the Orange County population . . . (one that) has heretofore not been very much involved with the orchestra’s programs.”

Spisto said the orchestra’s efforts are not contingent upon an Arts Council grant: “With or without California Arts Council money, we’re doing it. The Pacific Symphony itself is funding three concerts out of our operating budget.”

Furthermore, the orchestra has hired John Palacio as its Latino program adviser to help ensure development of its outreach projects. Palacio is Santa Ana’s former Latino affairs manager and an executive assistant to the city manager.

“I think we can’t afford not to do this,” Spisto said. “It’s critical. We have a responsibility to this community. It’s not only what’s required of us as presenters of classical music but what is responsible.

“We live in Santa Ana. Our home is in Santa Ana. And we receive a great deal of support from the city. . . . We are in great debt to the city of Santa Ana and feel absolutely compelled to provide service to people of Santa Ana who are not coming” to concerts.

“I’m personally delighted that we are finally getting something off the ground that we are have been promising for a long time. We are doing it the right way. We have the key leaders in the community working with us. This is not a program decided by the management of Pacific Symphony in isolation, but developed in consultation with and directed by the community with members of the community.

“We’re taking our cue from the community.”

Lucas Richman, assistant conductor of Pacific Symphony, will lead the orchestra in the first of three free Latino outreach concerts tonight at 7:30 at St. Jeanne de Lestonnac School Auditorium, 16791 E. Main St. in Tustin. The program will include works by Vivaldi, Rossini and Bizet. A reception will begin at 6:30 p.m. Information: (714) 836-6584 or (714) 973-1300.