CLASSICAL MUSIC : Philharmonic Organist Eager to Play Balboa Park

Leonard Raver, official organist of the New York Philharmonic, is no elitist. And just because he has grown accustomed to performing to smart audiences in Manhattan’s Avery Fisher Hall--he has been with the Philharmonic since 1977--he does not consider playing a recital on Balboa Park’s outdoor Spreckels Organ to be slumming.

In fact, he’s downright eager to make his Spreckels debut on July 9 as part of the Spreckels Organ Society’s Monday evening summer organ festival.

“It’s like the time I played the theater organ in Radio City Music Hall,” explained Raver in a phone interview from Los Angeles. “My friends asked me ‘How could you stand having to play that kind of instrument?’ But for me it was one of the greatest thrills of my life--I’ve never been a snob about that sort of thing.”

Although he had never played the Spreckels instrument until he visited San Diego this May, Raver had been aware of the city’s unique outdoor instrument since his student days.

“It’s really one of the famous instruments of the country. My college organ teacher in Tacoma, D. Robert Smith, had played it when he was stationed in San Diego while in the Navy. So I’ve known about the Spreckels Organ for a long time.”

During his 15-year tenure on the organ faculty at Juilliard, Raver became known as a staunch advocate of contemporary music, especially new works by American composers.

So it’s no surprise that his Balboa Park program will include several recent compositions: “Concert Aria” and “Sunday Scherzo” by Franklin Ashdown and Dan Locklair’s “Inventions,” a piece dedicated to Raver.

He has also included some of the more familiar blockbusters that will unleash the instrument’s recently fortified high-decibel thunder. He will play J. S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in D Major, Gigout’s “Grand Choeur Dialogue,” and the Finale from Vierne’s Sixth Organ Symphony.

“When you are playing outdoors, subtleties can be lost, so I was advised to play pieces that have more sonic impact.”

Earlier this year, Raver moved from New York to Los Angeles, which severed his relationship with Juilliard, but not with the Philharmonic. Because an organist is used only occasionally in symphonic literature, he’s content to commute.

“I’ll be back there in early October for some concerts under Leonard Slatkin. We’re doing the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony and Richard Strauss’ ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra.”

Board notes. Wesley Brustad, executive director of the San Diego Symphony, has been elected to the board of directors of the American Symphony Orchestra League. At the organization’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., last month, Brustad was also appointed to the board’s nominating committee. Before Brustad came to the local symphony in 1986, he had held similar administrative positions with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Spokane (Washington) Symphony.

The familiar Aussie accent. Local opera buffs are accustomed to tuning in KFSD-FM’s (94.1) regular Saturday morning broadcasts from the Met and from Lyric Opera of Chicago, but even the combined seasons of those prestigious houses do not provide enough operas for a year of Saturdays. Now that the run of this season’s broadcasts is completed, San Diego Opera general director Ian Campbell will resume his narration of opera recordings on Saturday mornings during the same time slot.

Campbell is noted for his enthusiasm for the gamut of operatic repertory as well as for his unmistakable, colorful Australian accent. (According to Campbell, Donizetti’s bel canto favorite “Lucia di Lammermoor” is actually an opus called “Loo Chee-er.”) His first program this year, which is devoted to Bizet’s “Carmen,” airs at 11 a.m. Saturday.

Though Campbell begins and ends this year’s operatic survey with familiar favorites (Verdi’s “La Traviata” will be heard on the Nov. 24 final program), he promises some unusual musical excursions along the way. On Aug. 14 he will play Rossini’s obscure early opera “Signor Bruschino,” and on Sept. 15 he will give Bizet’s “other” opera, “The Pearl Fishers,” a spin.

A little knight music. When North County gets the culture bug, you can be sure they’ll go whole hog. Rancho Bernardo’s Symphony on the Green opens its season tomorrow at 7:30 p.m., and although they’re not presenting the Vienna Philharmonic, they’ve lined up the next best alternative. Under the baton of Horace Heidt Jr., the Musical Knights will serenade listeners relaxed on the driving range of the Rancho Bernardo Inn with big band nostalgia. The Letterman trio, a mellow pop group from the pre-Beatles 1960s, will be the knights’ night cap.