The Birth of a New Orchestra : Music: The Philharmonic announces creation of an 80-100 member Hollywood Bowl ensemble, which will play here, record and tour.

Carefully avoiding the appellation “pops,” the management of the Los Angeles Philharmonic announced Wednesday the creation of a new symphonic ensemble, to be called the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, which will debut at the outdoor amphitheater in July and also record and tour internationally.

American conductor John Mauceri will lead the new 80- to 100-member orchestra, which will be made up of locally recruited musicians.

Ernest Fleischmann, executive vice president and managing director of the Philharmonic Assn., said that the orchestra, which already has received a 15-CD contract from Philips Classics at an undisclosed fee, may eventually play all weekend performances at the Bowl, giving the Philharmonic “extra time to rehearse its Tuesday and Thursday programs.”

Both the managing director and conductor Mauceri stressed that the new ensemble will play a wide range of repertory and that the term “pops” had been avoided in naming the orchestra.

“This is something unique in our century,” Mauceri commented, “That there seems to be a division between music that is ‘popular’ and music that is ‘serious.’ This ensemble will cut across these artificial barriers to become an orchestra for all tastes.”

But Fleischmann said that the impetus for forming the orchestra came last February from Costa Pilavachi, vice president for artists and repertoire of Philips. That label had just lost the Boston Pops recording contract to Sony Classical. Philips signed a 5-year contract with Fleischmann, with three or four recordings to be released in 1991.

The new orchestra initially will play for five weekends in the 1991 Bowl season and increase its presence at the outdoor showplace in future summers, Fleischmann said.

Although the orchestra’s debut performances will be given July 12 and 13, it will make its first recordings in February, said Pilavachi. “We expect to have those first two or three recordings available for sale at the Bowl in July.” No decisions have been reached regarding the repertory on the CD releases, he said.

Besides recording, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra will also tour, Fleischmann said, under auspices of the Philharmonic’s tour management, Columbia Artists (CAMI). Now in negotiations is an 8-10 concert tour to Japan beginning Dec. 31, 1991 in Osaka, he said.

Before the announcement was made at a press conference at the Bowl, Mauceri, the 45-year old music director of Scottish Opera--and a well-known figure in operatic and musical-theater venues--told The Times he has been retained on a five-year contract.

“I thought the idea of an orchestra that could play anything was tremendously attractive,” said Mauceri, who considers himself an opera, theater and symphonic conductor. Although he has toured with the Boston Pops, he said: “I was never a pops specialist.”

He said the orchestra will play eight weekends in 1992 and up to 10 weekends in 1993, which would be the Philharmonic’s entire weekend season schedule at the Bowl.

A protege of Leonard Bernstein, Mauceri has conducted at the Royal Opera Covent Garden, Milan, Metropolitan and New York City operas, San Francisco Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera and Opera Pacific in Orange County.

Forming the new ensemble, Fleischmann said, is part of a long-range strategy in which he hopes “to provide the L.A. Philharmonic players with a respite from their hectic summer schedule, which is so enervating. After a busy summer, it takes weeks for the musicians to get back to their top strength.”

He also said that providing more rehearsal time to the Tuesday and Thursday programs--which will be accomplished when another orchestra occupies the weekend performances--”will make it possible for us to bring demanding conductors to the orchestra in the summer as well as the winter season.”

While he declined to discuss the financial arrangements made with the recording company, Fleischmann revealed that the Philharmonic Assn. will have no start-up costs in forming the new orchestra, and that “the association will not lose any money in making these recordings.”

Fleischmann acknowledged that “it is a strange thing in the music business that when the Boston Pops and the Boston Symphony go on tour, the Pops commands a higher fee, perhaps 50% to 75% higher.”

The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, he predicted, “will pay for itself with its recordings and its touring, and eventually make a small profit.”