PROFILE : Piece by Piece : Composer John Biggs is trying to guide symphonic music out of the ruts of the past.

Ventura composer John Biggs has long wrestled with the problem of public perception of music written by living, breathing composers.

“People don’t know that symphonic music is still being written,” the composer said, half-bemused, “because there’s so much overkill, so much overemphasis on Mozart and doing the Handel ‘Messiah’ every year. We’re in 18th and 19th Century ruts.” And Biggs is doing his part to guide us out of those ruts.

Classical composers need love too, not to mention performances.

On a fine Mother’s Day morning, Biggs took time out for an interview while busily finishing work on the parts for this weekend’s performances of his “Cantata Rustica.”

Biggs is a composer with a strong reputation for his choral music. His relationship with the Ventura County Master Chorale has been fruitful in the last few years. The ensemble has performed small pieces of his and premiered his large-scale “Mass for a New Age” two years ago.

“Cantata Rustica” is based on the same robust medieval texts as Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.” Biggs commented that it “deals textually with life and lust for life and people gathering in a valley and dancing, having a good time.

“It does have a literary and stylistic kinship with Carl Orff--a kind of American version of what he was doing with the text,” he said. “It’s such a rich collection of wonderful, secular texts, discovered in a monk’s abbey. They wrote these things from their imagination to give them escape from the stringent life of a monk.”

The cantata is just the latest event in a relatively whirlwind year for Biggs. In January, the Los Angeles-based Armadillo String Quartet premiered his new string quartet in Pasadena.

In February, the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra performed Biggs’ Triple Concerto for Brass, and a full program of Biggs’ chamber music was presented in a special concert at the Thacher School in Ojai. In April, his Second Symphony was premiered by the York, Pa., symphony.

In November, Biggs’ first compact disk was released, a recording of his “Variations on a Theme of Shostakovich” featuring pianist Betty Oberacker. For the second CD project involving Biggs music, tenor Jonathan Mack and members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic recorded his “Songs for Laughter, Love and Tears” for the Crystal label.

There is more where that came from. Biggs will present a program of his choral and chamber music at Ventura City Hall in October. In November, the Ventura County Symphony, under new conductor Boris Brott, will premiere a Biggs orchestral work, variations on themes by Tchaikovsky, that will open a concert of music by Antonin Dvorak and Edward Elgar.

Composition, while always an inner urge for Biggs, was “something that I’ve always done part time. Because of the John Biggs Consort (a touring ensemble that he led for many years), composition always took a back seat. But now, because of my situation living here, I have more time to write, so I’m finally able to do what I really want to do--that’s to write big pieces.” For many years, the Los Angeles-born-and-raised Biggs called Santa Barbara home, but he moved to Ventura in December of 1988. The reason? “Love,” he said without hesitation.

Said love interest is artist Carol Rosenak, whose work has been seen around Ventura and who is represented by a Beverly Hills gallery. In their hillside home-with-a-view, looking down on old-town Ventura and the ocean, creative activity is abuzz.

“She paints downstairs and I write upstairs,” Biggs explained. “She critiques my things and I critique hers. This morning, I looked at a new painting of hers and I influenced her to change one thing that she agreed on. And I love to get her input on things. She’s always honest.”

This is a period of reaping what Biggs has sown over many years. The composer, 59, has amassed a catalogue of works that to date includes 51 choral works, 42 chamber works and 12 orchestral scores.

Hearing a concentrated dose of Biggs music confirms the impression that he is a composer without a hard, fixed stylistic signature. While his musical language and his shuffling of influences reveals a modern mind at work, the music also tends toward melodically driven structures and engaging qualities.

Unlike many working composers in America, Biggs has been a composer without a post, without an academic support system. During a a five-year stint, Biggs worked as a composer-in-residence at colleges in Kansas, during which time he wrote such well-known pieces as “Paul Revere’s Ride” and “Auction Cries.”

Since then, Biggs has chosen the rough route of the independent composer. “Stravinsky was against composers being on a faculty and making that their main role. He felt that you have to be out there, finding the needs of the community and writing for them.”

For sustenance, Biggs has long relied on piano tuning. While tuning, there is always the possibility of composing on the job. Biggs comes equipped with an “inspiration pad.” “When I’m trying out a piano after I’ve tuned it, my fingers will come across something and I’ll think, ‘Oh, I better write that down right away.’ ”

Biggs seems to have no lack of ideas and commissions to tackle. Among his personal dream projects are a large piece for chorus and orchestra and a comic opera based on Tarzan. Tarzan?

“I think I have a flair for comedy and I haven’t been able to draw on that in the ‘classical’ music area,” Biggs said. “I would put Tarzan in some absolutely compromising and ridiculous situations.”

But it won’t happen without a commission. Biggs is not one to create music merely for its own sake. He’s of the school that says: Despite the whims and shrugs of the music scene, music should be written to be heard. “The thing that dictates how I write a piece is who wants the piece,” he said.

“They were interviewing George and Ira Gershwin on a street corner. A newspaper writer asked, ‘Mr. Gershwin, when you’re writing a song, what comes first, the words or the music?’ And they said, ‘The contract.’

“I’ve never yet had to write in a vacuum. I’ve never written a piece that wasn’t destined for a particular performance.”

* WHERE AND WHEN

Ventura County Master Chorale, performing John Biggs’ “Cantata Rustica,” Schubert, Beethoven and Bach at the First Baptist Church, 426 S. Mills Road, Ventura, 8 p.m. Saturday; also at the Bill Esty Center, 3701 E. Las Posas Road in Camarillo, 4 p.m. Sunday.

UP CLOSE JOHN BIGGS

On being a composer outside of academia: “I would have a much better chance of winning contests and getting performances if I were in academia, because there’s an avenue there. When you say, ‘I’m a composer,’ people respond, ‘Oh, where do you teach?’ That’s usually the next question.”

On writing music to be heard: “I want to sustain the idea that Paul Hindemith held to. He wanted to write music that people could use. I do like to relate to the community and to try and give it something that it can use, that will get into the mainstream.”

On his “Cantata Rustica,” to be performed this weekend: “It’s very earthy and gutsy, not at all artsy. Mostly it’s rhythmic, driving and down-to-earth. Because of that, I’ve probably had more positive comments on it in casual meetings with choir members than I’ve had on any other piece.”