O.C. Conductor Sues Musicians

The founding music director of the Mozart Camerata chamber orchestra is suing former members of the group, charging that they slandered him when they resigned earlier this year.

In the suit, filed in Orange County Superior Court here, Ami Porat asks for unspecified damages from violinists Endre Granat and Alexander Horvath and other, unnamed parties. Granat, Horvath and other musicians stopped playing in the group after a dispute that erupted early this year.

Camerata attorney and board member Harvey Berman said Tuesday that Porat’s suit charges Granat, Horvath and the others with “slander, interference with contract, interference with economic relationship and conspiracy.” Granat and Horvath were out of town and could not be reached for comment.

The dispute flared in January when Granat, Horvath and six others told The Times that they had resigned from the Newport Beach-based orchestra. Several alleged that Porat’s musical leadership was inept and/or that they consistently received late salary payments and that there were other violations of musicians’ union regulations.

Porat denied the allegations and argued that the dispute was a result of “a personality problem” between Horvath and him. He also maintained that only Granat and Horvath had resigned because only they had contracts for the full season, and that the others had been hired only on a per-service basis.

Berman said the musicians’ statements have “caused season subscribers not to renew, members of the (musicians’) union not to renew contracts with us, contributors and donors . . . not to renew their contributions in the same amounts, (and) board members to resign.” He did not elaborate, and he said damages were not specified in the suit because “we are still computing what our loss is.”

In February, after the initial volley of complaints from the musicians, violinist Tanya Bovaird and violists Dmitri Bovaird and Miriam Meyer claimed that they had been barred from a Camerata rehearsal. Asserting that they had verbal agreements to play for the full 1990-91 season, they filed grievances with the Orange County Musicians Assn., Local 7. The union and the orchestra have agreed to settle that matter in small claims court.

Frank Amoss, president of the musicians’ union local, declined comment Tuesday on Porat’s suit.