Mozart Camerata Switches Site to Newport for ‘89-90 Season

The Mozart Camerata will move to a new venue for its 1989-90 season, founding artistic director Ami Porat has announced.

The chamber orchestra, founded in 1980 and reorganized in 1985, will offer five concerts, beginning Nov. 11, at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach.

The Camerata is making the move “in hopes of building an audience,” Porat said Monday.

Porat had similar hopes when he initiated a split season between Santa Ana High School and Newport Harbor High School two years ago, after playing Laguna Beach High School in 1985.

Last season, he moved all concerts--increased from four to five--to Santa Ana. But as other local groups have found to their cost, audiences remained wary of the area, despite the vaunted acoustics of the 1,500-seat auditorium built in 1935.

The Camerata drew about 260 subscribers last year, up from about 100 subscribers in 1985.

“It’s very unfortunate,” Porat said. “I really wanted that place to blossom from an audience point of view. It’s an historic site.”

Porat feels, however, that the new site, which seats 1,400, will “fit the bill perfectly.”

The budget for next season will be $188,000, compared to $150,000 last year. The number of musicians in the concerts will range from 28 to 37.

Soloists in the new season will include three Camerata members: flutist Gary Woodward and harpist Jo Ann Turovsky on Nov. 11 and bassoonist Carole McCallum on May 12.

Outside soloists will include violinist Sergiu Schwartz, a guest last season, who will return on April 7.

On Jan. 26, the Camerata will feature Canada’s 17-year-old Cory Cerovsek, a violin student of Josef Gingold at Indiana University, as soloist in both a piano and a violin concerto by Mozart.

“Mozart probably was the last one who has done that,” Porat said.

The final concert, June 16, is being billed as a bonus program for subscribers. It will enlist bass soloist Gary Karr, who will play his own transcriptions of violin works by Mendelssohn and Paganini, and will include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

Although some people may feel that a Beethoven symphony is out of place on a concert by a chamber orchestra, Porat, of course, disagrees.

“Beethoven’s Seventh was not written for a 100-piece orchestra,” Porat said. “Between 35 and 45 players is what late Mozart, early Beethoven had in mind. . . .

“Beethoven’s Seventh is a large-scale work in terms of composition; (but) in terms of form, it’s a classical symphony.”

Porat added: “In the future, there will be Brahms symphonies (on our programs). Anything classical (in form) . . . even though it may be Romantic music, is suitable for us.

Season tickets for five concerts: $69, if purchased before Oct. 1; $79, afterwards. Single tickets will go on sale later. Information: (714) 634-8276 or (714) 581-2600.

All programs will be at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach.

The schedule:

* Nov. 11, 8 p.m.: J.C. Bach’s Sinfonia, Opus 3, No. 2; Mozart’s Symphony No. 34 and Concerto for Flute and Harp, with soloists Gary Woodward (flute) and Jo Ann Turovsky (harp).

* Jan. 26, 8:30 p.m.: Mozart program: Symphony No. 40; Piano Concerto No. 9 and Violin Concerto No. 3, both with Cory Cerovsek as soloist.

* April 7, 8 p.m.: Beethoven’s “Coriolan” Overture and Violin Concerto, with soloist Sergiu Schwartz; Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 1, Opus 11.

* May 12, 8 p.m.: Mozart’s Concerto for Bassoon, with soloist Carole McCallum; Leopold Mozart’s String Sinfonia; Haydn’s Symphony No. 45 (“Farewell”); Michael Haydn’s Symphony No. 22.

* June 16, 8 p.m.: Overture to Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte,” Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7; and two works as arranged and played by bassist Gary Karr: the second movement of Mendelssohn’s Violin concerto and Paganini’s Introduction and Variations on “Dal Tuo Stellato Soglio” from Rossini’s “Mose in Egitto.”