New Music Appointments for Ohyama, Levinson

Last week was a banner week for announcing new music appointments. Heiichiro Ohyama, artistic director of the La Jolla Chamber Music Society’s annual SummerFest, is now music adviser for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Ohyama, violist and conductor, will be responsible for the programming of the prestigious New Mexico festival, which celebrates its 20th year in 1992.

Although the Santa Fe festival runs from July 18 through Aug. 24, 10 days after the La Jolla SummerFest begins, chamber music society executive director Neale Perl says Ohyama will leave Santa Fe early to open the La Jolla festival. Coincidentally, the La Jolla Chamber Music society imported musicians from the Santa Fe summer festival for three summer seasons (1982-84) before the local society started SummerFest in 1986.

Ohyama, who until last season was principal violist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is a professor of music at UC Santa Barbara, music director of the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, the Japanese Philharmonic Society of Los Angeles and principal conductor of the Round Top (Texas) Music Festival.

According to Perl, Ohyama’s new post will not infringe on his commitments here.

Meanwhile, San Diego cellist Jeffrey Levinson has been appointed director of Kent/Blossom Music, Kent State University’s summer chamber music institute run in conjunction with the Cleveland Orchestra. According to Levinson, the post is an administrative position at the Ohio university. During the summer, he will run the six-week festival, and during the rest of the year he will audition student musicians at conservatories and colleges across the country. Students coach with members of the Cleveland Orchestra and with the New World String Quartet, which will be in residence this season.

One of the founding members of the Thouvenel Quartet, Levinson came to San Diego in 1984 and played the San Diego Symphony. In 1989 he was appointed operations and personnel manager of the San Diego Mainly Mozart Festival. His wife, pianist Karen Follingstad, will take a partial leave from San Diego State University next semester to join Levinson in Ohio.