Seal Beach Festival Is Back on Its Feet Again : Music: Cellist Alan Parker has resuscitated the annual event after last year’s was cut short because of illness. The series will begin Tuesday.

For 16 summers, cellist Alan Parker offered free chamber music festivals in Seal Beach. But then, toward the end of last year’s festival, he fell sick. The final concert, which he was to have conducted, had to be canceled, and because the festival essentially had been a one-man operation, it all ground to a halt.

Parker, 44, bounded back, though, and has planned the 17th annual Seal Beach Festival, a slightly shorter-than-usual series that will start Tuesday with a program by the newly formed Festival String Quartet (the Southwest Chamber Music Society, originally announced, had to pull out because of a recording obligation, Parker said last week).

The Festival Quartet includes three members of the Pacific Symphony--violinists Rachel Robinson and Robert Schumitzky, and cellist Andrew Honea--and violist Craig Gibson, who has played with the Pacific for three years as a substitute.

Festival veterans returning this year include pianists Max Levinson (Aug. 6) and Albert Dominguez (Aug. 13).

The series has been “somewhat reduced,” to six concerts instead of the usual seven, because the budget is down to about $6,000 from last year’s $10,000.

Because of his illness, “we didn’t do a fund-raiser this year,” explained Parker, who will be drawing on funds left over from previous years and on money raised through an appeal to longstanding subscribers.

“There was some talk of canceling the festival for this summer,” he said. “But I didn’t want to do that. Once you cancel something, it’s not always that easy to get it going again.”

Still, he is curtailing his own involvement somewhat.

“Basically,” he said, “I put it all together, and now I’m trying to back off so that I function only as artistic director. We have delegated some of the responsibilities and duties for producing the concerts.”

Pat Cabe, a local musicologist and pianist, will take over writing program notes. Eldon Alexander, who teaches at Cal State Fullerton (and is Parker’s brother-in-law), will handle administrative matters. A patrons’ guild of 14 people from Seal Beach, Long Beach and Huntington Beach will provide further support.

Parker got the idea for a Southland festival while he was free-lancing as a cellist and found himself playing the Peter Britt Festival in Jacksonville, Ore. If that small community could manage to host a concert series, he thought, why not Seal Beach?

He organized a small group of supporters and got to work. As the festival grew over the years, he had to find larger concert venues. In 1989, the festival moved into its current home, the McGaugh School auditorium on Bolsa Avenue.

“It’s acoustically superior to any of the other halls or venues we’ve used, and it’s large enough so that crowding is not a problem,” Parker said. “It really seems to work pretty well for us.”

He admitted to feeling “a little bit tired” after having run the festival for so long, but he remains committed to it. Indeed, he said, “we’re going to come back with a bigger and better festival next summer.”

The series:

* July 9: The Festival String Quartet (Rachel Robinson and Robert Schumitzky, violins; Craig Gibson, viola; Andrew Honea, cello): Vivaldi’s Sonata “Al Santo Sepolcro”; Mozart’s Quartet in D minor, K. 173; Dvorak’s “American” Quartet.

* July 16: The Beverly Hills Trio (Milcho Leviev, piano; Debbie Grossman, violin; Parker, cello): Handel’s Sonata in G minor; Telemann’s Trio in D; Beethoven’s Trio No. 2.

* July 23: John Jensen, piano: Carl Ruggles’ “Evocations: Four Chants for Piano”; Mozart’s Fantasia in C minor, K. 475, and Sonata in C minor, K. 457; Chopin’s Nocturnes in C minor, Opus 48, No. 1, and D-flat, Opus 27, No. 2; Schumann’s “Faschingsschwank aus Wien,” Opus 26.

* July 30: Young Artists’ Guild: Performers and program to be announced.

* Aug. 6: Max Levinson, piano: Rameau’s Gavotta and Variations; Schubert’s Sonata in A, D. 959; Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit.”

* Aug. 13: Albert Dominguez, piano: Works by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Prokofiev.

All programs start at 8 p.m. in the McGaugh School Auditorium, 1698 Bolsa Ave., Seal Beach. Admission is free. Information: (213) 431-0950.