CLASSICAL MUSIC / KENNETH HERMAN : A Little Traveling Music, Please, for This Maestro

Thanks to conductor David Amos, some of San Diego’s most notable music-making this month will take place in London. Working with three local musical colleagues--violist Karen Elaine, baritone Sheldon Merel and San Diego State University resident composer David Ward-Steinman--the globe-trotting Amos will make three recordings of American music with three London orchestras.

Known locally as the music director of the Jewish Community Center Orchestra, Amos began recording in Israel several years ago. When he completes the London project, Amos will have made seven recordings this year, a respectable tally for a conductor not connected with a major orchestra.

By offering record companies musical programs off the beaten track--Amos does not see his own complete Beethoven symphony series in the offing--the San Diego conductor has found his niche. Labor costs in England, Israel and Poland, where Amos made two recordings in June, are significantly lower than comparable costs in the United States, so recording companies can afford to speculate on this type of music.

Amos has specialized in music written by composers he knows and with whom he has worked.

“If you are looking for music to record, the best method is to ask a composer which of his compositions he thinks has been undeservedly neglected,” Amos said. Ward-Steinman, for example, was eager to have his Chamber Concerto No. 2 preserved on disc. Amos and the City Sinfonia of London are recording it this afternoon for Harmonia Mundi records, with the composer on hand to offer his interpretive counsel.

Another composition on the Ward-Steinman disc will be Norman Dello Joio’s “Lyric Fantasies,” with Elaine performing the viola solo. Dello Joio, a Pulitzer prize-winner and one of the elder statesmen of U.S. composers, wrote “Lyric Fantasies,” which is really a viola concerto, in 1973. Amos spoke with the retired composer while he was preparing his conductor’s score for the upcoming recording session.

Merel, longtime cantor at San Diego’s Congregation Beth Israel, will perform the vocal solos in Alan Hovhaness’ “Shepherd of Israel,” to be recorded with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. Amos has recorded several of the Armenian-American composer’s works recently, including a critically well-received account of Hovhaness’ “And God Created Great Whales.”

A busy recording schedule is the bread and butter of the various London orchestras, but according to Amos, the British musicians keep a good sense of humor about the nonstop projects. But they are sufficiently jaded to size up a guest conductor very quickly.

“I once asked a London concertmaster (the British call them ‘leaders’) how long it typically took the musicians to evaluate a conductor once he started a rehearsal. ‘We know if he’ll be any good before he steps on the podium,’ was the unhesitating reply.”

Vocal relief. While most U.S. opera houses are well into their fall productions, local opera buffs must mark time until San Diego Opera’s season opens in January. Temporary relief is in sight, however, with a pair of vocal recitals sponsored by the local company at La Jolla’s Sherwood Auditorium. Sunday at 7 p.m., German tenor Hans Peter Blochwitz will make his American recital debut, and the following Sunday, Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky will sing his only West Coast recital this fall.

Blochwitz, who made his stage debut in 1984 as Lensky in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” made his Metropolitan Opera debut last month in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” As Don Ottavio, a role he will sing for San Diego Opera in 1993, New York Times music critic Donal Henahan praised Blochwitz for “his silvery tone and a pliantly phrased ‘Dalla sua pace’ .” For the San Francisco Opera, Blochwitz sang Idamante in Mozart’s “Idomeneo.”

Sunday’s program will be devoted to two complete song cycles, Schubert’s “Die schone Mullerin” and Robert Schumann’s “Dichterliebe.” Blochwitz will be accompanied by Australian pianist Peter Grunberg. Although the Hvorostovsky recital is sold out, some tickets are available from the opera office for Blochwitz.

Requiem for Rozsnyai. The San Diego Symphony’s Oct. 19 performance of Gabriel Faure’s Requiem will be dedicated to Zoltan Rozsnyai, who died last month. The symphony’s music director from 1976-71, Rozsnyai conducted the orchestra’s first commercial recording. Current music director Yoav Talmi will conduct this performance of the Requiem, assisted by the La Jolla Civic-University Chorus, soprano Sivan Rotem and baritone Hector Vasquez.

Another new music director. Kerry Duse will fill the post left vacant by the recent death of Zoltan Rozsnyai. Duse has been rehearsing the International Orchestra at United States International University for the last few weeks and will make his debut in his new role with the ensemble Dec. 14, 8 p.m., in La Jolla’s Sherwood Auditorium.

At USIU, Duse has directed more than 30 musical-theater productions and has also conducted ballet and pops concerts with the International Orchestra. Before his association with USIU, the California native spent five years as music director of Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet. He had a similar post with the Banff Festival Ballet and was principal pianist with Switzerland’s Geneva Opera.