He Courts Music--but Finds Legal Woes : Law: Mozart Camerata founder Ami Porat is embroiled in litigation filed by irate musicians and former lovers.

For a small chamber group operating on a financial shoestring, the Mozart Camerata continues to generate--along with some well-received music--a good deal of controversy.

On Wednesday, Camerata founder Ami Porat found himself embroiled in two more motions filed in Orange County Superior Court, the latest chapter in a tangled tale of jilted lovers, litigation, debts and a musical mutiny over the conductor’s artistic competence.

Disputes have involved individual musicians, the musicians’ union, board presidents, creditors and women with whom Porat has been involved privately and professionally. Among the results have been three lawsuits, including the two motions filed Wednesday.

Porat, 44, established the Camerata, one of two chamber ensembles in Orange County, in 1980. The group, which uses 28 to 44 free-lance musicians depending on the repertory, has played in various school auditoriums and most recently in St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach and the Irvine Barclay Theatre. It has grown from a one-concert season to six concerts in 1990 and its budget for fiscal year 1989, the last year for which verified figures are available, was just under $150,000.

In many ways, the Irvine-based Mozart Camerata is a one-man band. Most of its outstanding debts--$23,000 at last report--are owed to Porat in the form of deferred compensation. Porat, invariably referred to as “Maestro Porat” in Camerata literature, received $5,150 for conducting the Camerata in 1989, according to Internal Revenue Service documents.

The orchestra’s recent activities have been more notable in the courtroom than in the concert hall:

* In a 1988 suit, then-Camerata president Laura Rabin Bailey of Irvine sued Porat and the orchestra for failing to repay a loan of $7,300, used to pay the musicians. In contesting the suit, Porat’s brief stated that he and Bailey, “who had had an intimate personal relationship, began to grow apart” and she demanded repayment. Eventually, the Camerata (but not Porat) was ordered to repay the loan in installments of $250 a month, plus court costs.

* The Camerata has had three other presidents in the last three years, one of whom left in a public dispute with Porat.

* Earlier this year, eight Camerata musicians said they no longer would play with the orchestra, and 17 members complained to the musicians union about Porat’s leadership and alleged late payments. Porat denied there were late payments and this dispute is pending in small-claims court.

* Porat responded by suing two of the eight musicians and a former fiancee for slander, charging that they had conspired to injure his reputation and the operation of the orchestra.

* Porat last year was sued by the former fiancee, who alleged that he physically assaulted her.

This alleged attack is now the subject of Wednesday’s legal actions by both parties. His brief stated that his ex-fiancee attacked him first and that he reacted in self-defense. Because the original lawsuit opened up allegations that she said Porat was musically incompetent, on Wednesday she filed documents denying that she made such statements.

According to a 1990 Sheriff’s Department report, Karen D. Shenker, a systems engineer, said she was a passenger in a car that Porat was driving on Interstate 5 at El Toro Road when Porat became “verbally abusive” to Shenker, causing her to grab Porat’s hair. “This enraged Porat, so he hit the left side of her face with a fist,” according to Shenker’s account to officers. “The strike caused Shenker’s head to snap sideways and hit the closed window.”

Shenker sued Porat for assault and battery. Porat responded Wednesday in a brief that he acted “reasonably” in self-defense. The brief asserts that Shenker had “willfully initiated an attack on Porat, striking him about the head and face and grabbing the steering wheel from him, all while he was driving” on the freeway. Porat, the motion states, “feared that bodily harm would ensue to himself, Shenker and others, therefore he used reasonable force under the circumstances to avoid injuries and to cause Shenker to desist.”

The dispute had taken on an additional dimension on June 7 when Porat filed a cross complaint against Shenker charging her with interference with the orchestra and slander. Shenker, according to Porat, called the conductor “not a competent musician” in a conversation with James D. Baker III, a former Camerata president.

Porat’s suit also asserts that Shenker told other people, listed in the suit, that “Ami Porat was incompetent, non-musical, abusive and no longer capable of providing musical leadership, all with the intent to harm (Porat) financially.”

Like most arts organizations, the Camerata does not earn enough to support itself. Annual expenditures for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1990, were about $150,000, according to documents filed with the IRS. The same report indicates that the Camerata had a deficit of $8,239 for that year--an improvement from the previous fiscal year, when the deficit was $58,456, according to the documents.

But the orchestra’s performances have been generally well reviewed, and subscribers have grown from 40 in 1985 to 1,056 in 1990. Camerata attorney Harvey E. Berman said earlier this week that “the ultimate test of leadership is the final quality of the work product. . . . The litigation is unrelated to the question of the quality of the product.”