CLASSICAL MUSIC : SummerPops to Showcase Dallas Woman as Conductor

Kate Tamarkin, associate conductor of the Dallas Symphony, laments the lack of preparation young conductors receive in pops concerts.

“In all of my studies,” said the Northwestern University graduate who is completing her doctorate at Peabody Conservatory, “I’ve never had so much as a unit devoted to pops conducting.

“My closest encounter to actual instruction was watching Arthur Fiedler conduct the Boston Pops on TV. There is an art to doing it well, because pops conducting involves lots of styles and not a lot of rehearsal time. People shouldn’t assume that you just toss off pops.”

In her local debut this week, Tamarkin will conduct two programs for the San Diego Symphony’s SummerPops. Wednesday’s potpourri of Beethoven, Brahms and Bach will mark the first program of the summer season’s Great Composers series, while her Friday offering will be a more typical pops roundup of Broadway hits and medleys. Tamarkin explained why Americans identify the songs of Broadway musicals as the most typical pops fare.

“American audiences nowadays have less contact with the German tradition of light pops, the Viennese waltzes and light overtures by Von Suppe and the like. Especially listeners who were raised on the music of the Beatles--they don’t have that Old World popular tradition.”

Tamarkin, a Laguna Beach native who entered the world of music as a horn player, paid her dues before joining the Dallas Symphony staff last year. She had just completed seven years as music director of the Fox Valley Symphony in Appleton, Wis., a modest musical institution with a five-concert season. Her Dallas duties require her to conduct about 50 concerts, mainly youth concerts and pops programs, although she will have an appearance on the orchestra’s subscription season and lead the annual Christmas “Messiah” concert.

As a woman conductor connected with a symphony orchestra, Tamarkin is acutely aware that she is a member of a regrettably exclusive club, although she was not the sole woman among the 12 candidates for the Dallas post. Other club members include the Long Beach Symphony’s music director JoAnn Falletta and French conductor Catherine Comet, music director of Michigan’s Grand Rapids Symphony.

“The situation for women conductors is getting better all the time,” Tamarkin said. “My belief at this point is that America is ahead of a lot of places, especially Europe, which is why Comet is here.”

Castles in Spain. The San Diego Youth Symphony will rub shoulders with a number of notable contemporary musicians and historical landmarks during its three-week concert tour of Spain next month. On July 17, conductor Louis Campiglia will depart from San Diego with his 70 musicians for an itinerary that includes performances in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Burgos.

In Valencia’s international festival of youth orchestras, the San Diegans will participate as the sole American ensemble among 14 youth orchestras. At the Festival Torroella de Mont Gri outside Barcelona, Campiglia’s orchestra joins a roster of soloists that includes flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal. The youth orchestra will also perform in a festival at El Escorial, the historic 16th-Century palace fortress outside of Madrid and in the 17th-Century church of St. Andrews of Llavaneras, near Barcelona.

Violinist Frank Almond will be the orchestra’s soloist in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. Almond will meet the group in Spain after he makes his second big attempt for the gold at Moscow’s International Tchaikovsky Competition. (Almond was a finalist in the 1986 Tchaikovsky Competition.) The tour repertory also includes Verdi’s Overture to “La Forza del Destino” and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

Most of the musicians in the San Diego Youth Orchestra are high school students, although the youngest player is an 11-year-old violinist and the oldest a 25-year-old violist. To raise money for the trip--about $2,100 per person--orchestra members have played benefit concerts and music marathons; they have also given chamber music concerts in private homes.

“We’ll be making some grants and loans so that each student can participate,” explained orchestra vice president Kristine Henyey. “We’ve held musical marathons to give the students opportunities to earn money without resorting to car washes. These young musicians are too busy for such activities.”

Friday and Saturday, Campiglia and the orchestra will perform its traditional “Night in Vienna” benefit at the Balboa Park Club. Music aficionados who want to support the orchestra can dance or listen to Strauss waltzes and polkas played by the full orchestra. According to Henyey, period dress or formal wear for the benefit is optional.

Playing for dollars. Cash prizes totaling $17,000 have been awarded to seven local music students by the Musical Merit Foundation of Greater San Diego.

Ryan Anthony of El Cajon, a trumpet student at the Cleveland Institute of Music and former protege of local trumpet instructor Charles Lauer, received the $4,000 first prize. La Mesa resident Jeremy Justeson, a saxophone student at California State University, Fullerton, won the $3,500 second prize.

The $3,000 third-place award went to violist Susan Dubois, a San Diego resident attending the University of Southern California. Earlier this month, Dubois performed the Bartok Viola Concerto with the La Jolla Civic-University Symphony Orchestra at UC San Diego’s Mandeville Auditorium. Cellist Karen Freer of San Diego, last year’s first-place winner and a recent graduate of the University of Indiana, received the $2,000 fourth prize.

The $1,750 fifth prize was awarded to Chula Vista resident Yu-Mei Wei, and violinist David Chan of Del Mar won the $1,500 sixth prize. Seventh prize of $1,250 went to San Diegan John Polhamus, a baritone who has sung with San Diego Opera.

Rain check. On the final day of David Atherton’s Mainly Mozart Festival, an unexpected June rainstorm dampened the British maestro’s enthusiasm for the Old Globe’s Maxwell Davies Festival Theatre, where all of the festival’s orchestra concerts had been given. Although St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral was the designated emergency venue in case of rain, Atherton knew that squeezing all 30 players into the narrow cathedral chancel would be no mean feat.

By noon Saturday, festival management had secured the more commodious main stage of the Lyceum Theatre in Horton Plaza, where the festival orchestra had rehearsed twice during the 10-day Mozart fest. Volunteers phoned just under 600 ticket-holders to inform them of the change of location, and, shortly after 7:30 p.m. the rescheduled concert commenced.

Response to the Lyceum as a concert hall was favorable. Orchestra members, who are by nature biased to indoor stages, gave the Lyceum a solid vote, although responses from the audience were mixed. If the nearby Kingston Hotel survives its current financial woes and continues to house Mainly Mozart musicians, the Lyceum stands as a likely candidate for the festival’s new location. Mainly Mozart officials, however, have not confirmed that they are seeking a new venue. For the festival’s first two seasons, all concerts have been scheduled on the stages of the Old Globe in Balboa Park.