Orchestra Will Strive to Broaden Repertory : Music: Director Larry Granger, whose South Coast Symphony launches new hall, will focus on overlooked gems.

Watching the recent “Civil War” series on public television brought home a realization to South Coast Symphony Music Director Larry Granger.

“There are masterpieces of music that have been simply overlooked, not performed--just as people were overlooked in our history for ethnic reasons,” Granger said in a recent phone interview. “Look at all the discoveries in terms of the Civil War, such as the service of black Americans. That (kind of oversight) has not been peculiar to history, but (extends) to art and music too.”

So Granger, who opens his new season today at Orange Coast College and moves his orchestra into the new Irvine Barclay Theatre to inaugurate that hall on Sunday, plans to incorporate much more music by minority composers in future South Coast Symphony seasons.

“We’re really trying to branch out,” he said, “to broaden the scope of what people think is the standard orchestral literature, beyond the traditional European-American music to include more purely American music, much more contemporary music and music by composers of all periods who have been overlooked (for) political and historical reasons.

“Our literature is not only warhorses, but we’re moving into a new direction in that every concert is having an ethnic or contemporary piece on the program.

“We are being much more innovative than anything at the (Orange County) Performing Arts Center,” he added. At the new Irvine facility “we can afford to do that. Our overhead is low enough so we can take some risks and do works not heard before. . . .

“One of the things that orchestras have got to do is be on the cutting edge of what’s happening,” Granger added. “Orchestras have to become part of the current world. We have to explore a variety of music to reach the ever-growing scope of what is American culture, especially in Southern California. . . .

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that every piece (will be) a winner,” he cautioned. “But there certainly have been some strong compositions that have been overlooked. Today, so many women are doing strong work. . . .”

For the first concert of the season, Granger has put together a celebratory program, opening with Vaughan Williams’ “Serenade to Music.”

“We felt very strongly the very first work should be a salute to music itself,” he said. “The work also gives us a chance not only to work with instrumentalists but with vocalists (the 40-member Lee Vail Singers) as well, which I think is also appropriate to the opening of the theater and the opening of the season.”

The program will include Aram Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto, with soloist Leonard Pennario (Granger calls the concerto “an aerobic workout”) and will conclude with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, which “represents to us a triumph of the orchestra’s struggles over the past seven years,” the conductor said. Financial problems had led to cancellations and postponements of some concerts in past seasons, but those difficulties have been largely resolved, Granger said.

Granger and the orchestra will have only two rehearsals in the new Irvine Barclay facility, and they may be particularly tricky because the “sound shell”--or reflective backing placed behind the musicians--will have just been installed. In fact, the theater management plans to use the concert as part of an effort to “tune,” or adjust, the acoustics of the hall.

Still, Granger is optimistic.

“Things are coming along really nicely,” he said. “I think it will be a wonderful theater for us. . . . There’s no bad seat in the house. People can distinguish facial features from wherever they are sitting. So the level of communication will be much more personal there.

“The biggest problem is really getting the word out about the theater and the events that are there. We hope they will be producing a quarterly calendar of all the events, so people can see all the choices. We would look forward to combining mailing lists.

“We’re hoping that the Irvine Theatre will give us more recognition in the county. We hope it will focus attention on where we are now--and that people will hear us as a new organization” with a new purpose.

Larry Granger will conduct the South Coast Symphony in music by Beethoven, Vaughan Williams and Aram Khachaturian tonight at 8:15 at the Robert B. Moore Theatre, Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa; and Sunday at 3:15 p.m. at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. Leonard Pennario will be piano soloist. Tickets: $12 to $25. Information: (714) 432-5527 for Orange Coast College; (714) 854-5527 for the Irvine Barclay Theatre.