There’ll Be Life After Mozart : Performing: Bicentennial observations will be over, but there will still be music and dance events to look forward to.

The new year doesn’t offer a single theme around which all activity will revolve, as did 1991 with the Mozart bicentennial observation. But a number of Orange County events still pique interest.

* Violinist Nigel Kennedy, the bad boy of British classical music, will be playing locally for the first time. He will appear with the Minnesota Orchestra under the direction of Edo de Waart on Jan. 22 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Kennedy is the guy who spooked some English critics with his punky spiked hair, Dr. Strangelove glasses and trendy outfits, but who has packed in youthful audiences at his concerts, apparently because his contemporaries can relate to him.

As for his playing--well, there’s a lot of debate about that. . . . He will play the Berg Violin Concerto on a concert sponsored by the Orange County Philharmonic Society.

* Christopher Hogwood, one of the indisputable luminaries of the disputable authentic-performance-practice movement, will conduct the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra on March 9 at the Center, courtesy of the Philharmonic Society.

Hogwood writes brilliantly about music but conducts it at times from such a rigidly dogmatic perspective that the results can be insensitive. At the Center, he will offer a program of music by Corelli, Haydn, Mozart and Michael Tippett.

* Carl St. Clair, music director of the Pacific Symphony, will give the West Coast premiere of Toru Takemitsu’s “From Me Flows What You Call Time” for five percussionists and orchestra on the March 26 and 27 concerts at the Center. The work was commissioned in 1990 by the Boston Symphony and the Nexus percussion ensemble, which will play at the Pacific concerts.

* Orange County will have its first Performing Arts Center glimpse of Esa-Pekka Salonen, music director-designate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, at an Orange County Philharmonic Society-sponsored concert May 2.

The charismatic young conductor, who actually led the orchestra in the good and bad old days at Santa Ana High School, will offer a program of music by Debussy, Bartok and Stravinsky. Yefim Bronfman will be the soloist in Bartok’s First Piano Concerto.

OPERA

Opera events this year begin with tenor Placido Domingo singing a benefit concert for Opera Pacific on Jan. 12. The event, which also enlists soprano Ann Panagulias and conductor John DeMain, is a part of the quid pro quo arrangement worked out by the local opera guys, the Center and the Los Angeles Music Center for presenting Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West” last June at the Center.

* The Opera Pacific season continues with Puccini’s “Tosca” (Jan. 17-25), Emmerich Kalman’s “Gypsy Princess” (Feb. 21-March 8) and Saint-Saens’ “Samson et Dalila” (Feb. 26-March 6).

* But be on the watch for a concert version of Ravel’s “L’Enfant et les Sortileges” by the Pacific Symphony led by St. Clair on May 6 and 7 at the Center. Soloists will be members of the Los Angeles Music Center Opera.

DANCE

American Ballet Theatre will make good on half its promised local season with a West Coast premiere of “Don Quixote” Feb. 4-9 at the Center. (ABT bowed out of a pre-Christmas premiere of a new production of the “Nutcracker” ballet last year (1991), citing financial constraints.)

Making its first West Coast appearance since 1965, the Royal Danish Ballet will dance a new full-length production “Napoli” and other works by seminal choreographer August Bournonville, June 9-14 at the Center.

ORCHESTRA

In addition to the Salonen concert, the Los Angeles Philharmonic will appear under the direction of Andre Previn (Jan. 11), David Zinman (Feb. 1) and Zubin Mehta (in an April 25 concert to benefit the Philharmonic Society). All the programs will be at the Center.

* Other visiting orchestras at the Center will include the Cincinnati Symphony led by Jesus Lopez-Cobos (March 12), the Moscow Philharmonic led by Mark Ermler (April 10) and the City of Birmingham Symphony under the direction of Simon Rattle (April 23). The Philharmonic Society is sponsoring all these events.

* The Pacific Symphony will be led by visiting conductor Sixten Ehrling on April 15 and 16 at the Center. James Kanter, principal clarinetist of the orchestra, will be soloist in Copland’s Clarinet Concerto on the May 27 and 28 concerts led by St. Clair.

* William Hall will lead the Master Chorale of Orange County in Bach’s Mass in B-minor on March 15 at the Center and Maurice Durufle’s Requiem on May 17 at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach.

* John Alexander will lead the Pacific Chorale in a program of mixed repertory on March 28 at the Center.

* The winner of the South Coast Symphony Youth Competition will appear with the orchestra on Feb. 8 at the Irvine Barclay. Music director Larry Granger will conduct.

* Gisele Ben-Dor, resident conductor of the Houston Symphony, will lead the Orange County Symphony of Garden Grove on May 2 at the Don Wash Auditorium.

CHAMBER MUSIC AND RECITALS

Visiting ensembles include the Cleveland Quartet on Jan. 16 at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, the Kronos Quartet on Jan. 25 at Orange Coast College and the Cuarteto Latinoamericano on Feb. 11 at Founders Hall at the Center. Also at the Irvine Barclay: the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet (March 16) and the Juilliard String Quartet (April 2). The programs at the Irvine Barclay are co-sponsored by the Laguna Chamber Music Society and the Philharmonic Society.

* Visiting recitalists at the Center include a duo with violinist Elmar Oliveira and pianist Horacio Gutierrez (Jan. 10), cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Jeffrey Kahane (April 8) and soprano Jessye Norman (April 24). At the Irvine Barclay, violinist Robert McDuffie will play on Jan. 14, cellist Carter Brey and pianist Christopher O’Riley on March 15, and vocalist Joan Morris and pianist William Bolcom on April 21. These recitals are sponsored by the Philharmonic Society.

* Micah Levy will lead the Orange County Chamber Orchestra on Jan. 13, March 9 and May 18 at the Irvine Barclay. Ami Porat will conduct the Mozart Camerata on Feb. 8, April 4 and May 16 at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. The Southwest Chamber Music Society has programs scheduled for Jan. 23, Feb. 20, March 19, April 30 and June 11 at Chapman University in Orange.