San Diego Spotlight : Youth Takes Center Stage Via Empty Symphony Slots

Despite the San Diego Symphony’s newfound fiscal stability, the players’ wages remain at the low end of the scale for U.S. symphony orchestras. As some of the more ambitious players take positions with better-paying orchestras in Los Angeles and San Francisco, their ranks are filled with younger recruits.

Rodney Mack, a 23-year-old musician from New Orleans and recent graduate of Philadelphia’s Curtiss School of Music, just joined the San Diego Symphony as assistant principal trumpet. Mack discovered that one does not slip into such a post with quiet anonymity.

“My first concert here was a run-out concert in Rancho Bernardo,” he recalled. “In my position, if the principal trumpet cannot play, then I play principal. He wasn’t there, so having to play principal the first time out was like jumping right into the fire. Then the first concert here at the new pops site I had to play principal again. That program included Holst’s “The Planets” and “Star Wars”--all those really big-blow tunes. When you have to lead, the rest of the guys are checking you out.”

Mack survived his initiation and has only praise for his colleagues in the brass section. He had already gained a favorable impression of the San Diego Symphony when he attended performances of the Mahler Second Symphony under music director Yoav Talmi during the trumpet auditions in April. Besides the orchestra’s level of performance, Mack was struck with the audience’s serious response to the Mahler.

“I remember when I was playing with the New Orleans Symphony before it went under. There, people walked away saying, ‘I hope they’re still in business next week,’ or ‘Did you hear they haven’t paid the players?’ I thought San Diego might be the same situation, since I knew they had been locked out before. But, when I went to the Mahler, everybody was talking about the music. ‘What did you think about the section where the voices came in?’ or ‘I think he did it a little differently than he did last night.’ “I was surprised by that. I guess I expected a lot less, since San Diego is not Boston or Cleveland or New York. I was pleasantly surprised they were actually talking about the music.”

Fellow newcomer Matthew Zory joined the San Diego Symphony last fall as assistant contrabass only to move into the principal slot a few weeks into the season when then-principal Oscar Meza joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In May, Zory won the audition for the permanent first-chair position.

And Zory, like Mack, has his impressions of the symphony’s audience.

“I’d describe our audience as small but dedicated,” Zory mused. “What I find interesting, is that when I’ve given tickets to new friends here in San Diego, they attended a concert, enjoyed it and made it back again. But it is disappointing that they hadn’t known about the symphony before that experience. I think there’s a bigger audience out there that would enjoy the symphony.”

Zory, too, has nothing but praise for the other musicians of his section.

“The guys in my section are incredibly supportive. I came in and got bumped up to first chair, but any of the guys could do the job. They’re all strong, seasoned players.”

Zory’s journey to San Diego from New York City, where he was a free-lance bass player, included playing a year with the Phoenix Symphony. It was there that he first encountered Talmi as a guest conductor, an experience that encouraged him to take the audition for principal bass in San Diego.

Zory is pleased with his westward migration, but he misses New York’s contemporary music scene.

“When I left New York, I was starting to play a lot of contemporary music with a group called Parnassus, and we had done some recordings. I miss that both here and in Phoenix.”

Zory said he left New York more for practical reasons than musical ones.

“By the time I left, I was playing mostly with the New York City Opera orchestra and was starting to do stuff with City Ballet. I just got tired of hauling my bass on the subway.”

Impresario at mike. San Diego Opera General Director Ian Campbell returns to KFSD-FM (94.1) at 11 a.m. today with his weekly opera broadcast. Now in its fifth season, Campbell’s program fills in the gap between the local station’s final broadcast from Lyric Opera of Chicago in June and the opening broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera in late November. On the Saturday morning program, Campbell will host 21 operas, including the five operas scheduled for the local company’s 1992 season. Today’s broadcast is “La Sonnambula” by Vincenzo Bellini.

Correcting “The Impresario.” The performance of Mozart’s one-act comic opera “The Impresario” at last month’s Kingston Mainly Mozart Festival may be but a dim memory, but it’s never too late to set the record straight. Because of the errors in the festival program brochure, the divas were incorrectly identified. Although the festival management did not acknowledge the confusion, soprano Pamela Menas’ management brought the problem to The Times’ attention. Because Menas’ performance as Madame Herz garnered the kudos in The Times’ review, it only seems fair to shower praise on the right singer.

Another bicentennial. Although much of the music world cannot get enough Mozart during the composer’s bicentennial year, Donald Shanks of La Jolla notes that today Oxford University is marking another bicentennial. With a pair of all-Haydn concerts, Oxford celebrates the 200th anniversary of presenting Joseph Haydn with an honorary doctoral degree. In return, Haydn wrote his Symphony No. 92 “Oxford” for the university. Shanks is the former music director of St. Joseph’s Cathedral in San Diego.