Keith Clark to Establish a ‘Modest Beachhead’ on Local Music Scene : Conductor: The Pacific Symphony’s founder will inaugurate a chamber- music series in his first public concert in O.C. since losing a bitter battle last May with its board.

Fans of Keith Clark can toast him with a glass of wine and hear him conduct Bach tonight at the Robert Mondavi Food and Wine Center in Costa Mesa.

Founder and former music director of the Pacific Symphony, Clark will inaugurate a series of three chamber-music concerts at the Mondavi facility. These will be his first public concerts in Orange County since he left the Pacific last May after losing a bitter battle with the organization’s board of directors.

“We will be establishing a monthly series (at the Mondavi Center) of very informal, small-scale evenings of chamber music,” Clark said in a recent phone interview from New Jersey. Clark has been music director of the Cathedral Symphony in Newark since 1986.

“My involvement is more as a concert organizer, a catalyst. My involvement as a conductor is minimal. . . . My activities as a conductor are elsewhere. . . .”

He sees the event as establishing only a modest beachhead for himself in the local music scene.

“There is no intention of this growing into other than what it is,” he said. “We’re going to get fine musicians for a small, hopefully discerning audience and perform music in an informal atmosphere. This can provide an opportunity for young players to be better known and an opportunity for composers to present new works.”

“There will be no hype, no fund raising, no publicity, no critics, just music,” he added.

Appearing with Clark will be a group of 10 musicians, including 10-year-old violinist Tamaki Kawakubo. None of the players are from the Pacific Symphony, but Clark said he hasn’t ruled out future appearances by members of the orchestra.

Two other concerts in the series are scheduled for April 25 and May 30.

The April 25 program will include the string sextet which serves as the overture for Strauss’ opera “Capriccio”; Mahler’s “Songs of a Wayfarer,” in a reduction for small ensemble by Arnold Schoenberg; and Schoenberg’s “Verklarte Nacht” in its original string sextet version.

The May 30 program will include music by Haydn, Schubert, Roy Harris, Clark and Valencia-based composer Mark McGurty.

Clark and McGurty have had a long musical association, including the first performances of five of McGurty’s works, Clark said, such as a major orchestra piece, “The Death of Anatole,” in Newark in 1987; the Piano Concerto at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre in August of 1988, and incidental music for “The Guilty Mother” last May with the Long Beach Opera.

Clark’s work is entitled “Lost Children,” a setting of four poems by William Blake. It is one of a number of works he has written or revised since leaving the Pacific Symphony.

“I’ve sent 14 pieces off to various publishers this year,” Clark said. “I have done more composing in the last 10 months than in the last 10 years.”

Clark’s recent activities have included conducting a concert of excerpts from Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov,” with basso Jerome Hines and the Oakland Opera, in November. He recently recorded Berlioz’s “Te Deum” and Belgian composer Joseph Jongen’s “Symphonie Concertante for Organ and Orchestra” with the New Jersey forces for the Pro Organo label.

He has been busy planning a major Bach festival in New Jersey for next year and plans to return shortly to Czechoslovakia, where he has recorded five albums with the Slovak Philharmonic and the Czech Radio Symphony.

These activities have kept him too busy to follow the Pacific’s search for a music director, which ended last month with the appointment of Boston Symphony assistant conductor Carl St. Clair.

“I haven’t been following it too closely,” Clark said of the search, adding that he does not know his successor. “I’ve been away a lot.”

Clark paints a happy picture of his current activities.

“I have the luxury of conducting only the music I want to conduct, and instead of getting up in the morning and worrying about how many tickets have been sold, what the budget is, or an upcoming board meeting, I can play an hour and a half of Bach every morning, which is my daily regimen,” he said. “Things are going very well.”

Keith Clark will conduct a Bach chamber music program at 6 p.m. today at the Robert Mondavi Wine and Food Center, 1750 Scenic Ave., in Costa Mesa. Soloists will include soprano Maurita Phillips-Thornburg, flutist Paul Fried, violinists Tamaki Kawakubo and Sheryl Staples, and harpsichordist Michael Zearott. Tickets: $25 (includes wine and cheese). Information: (714) 979-4510.