MUSIC : Pacific Symphony, CSUF to Train Young Musicians

Cal State Fullerton and the Pacific Symphony announced plans Tuesday for an orchestra training program for advanced musicians 16 to 26 years of age. The Pacific Symphony Orchestra Institute at California State University, Fullerton, would begin in the fall of 1993.

The institute would be funded jointly, although “the budget has not been developed,” according to the orchestra’s executive director, Louis B. Spisto. “That’s the task at hand now, to develop the plan,” he said. “We have a year to seek specific underwriting.”

University president Milton Gordon called the venture “a wonderful opportunity for fund-raising.”

The program would be open to any young musician, not just CSUF students. Auditions would be held next spring.

Carl St. Clair, music director of the orchestra, said creation of the institute is part of the Pacific’s mission “to develop outreach and educational opportunities in our community. The future of music lies in the youth. We need to create opportunities for them so that the future of music in the 21st Century will be healthy.”

As artistic adviser to the institute, St. Clair would conduct one of the four concerts planned at the university each year and would appoint and supervise the institute conductor, who also would serve as the assistant conductor of the Pacific, a position currently held by Daniel Hege. Hege’s yearly contract expires in August and will be renewed but will expire again before the institute would begin, Spisto said. A formal competition for the position is not planned, according to St. Clair. A program coordinator also would be named.

The institute would be governed by an advisory board of eight members, four from the orchestra association and four from the university.

Connections between the orchestra and CSUF go back to 1978, when the university founded the 36-member Pacific Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Keith Clark, then a professor and director of university orchestras. The chamber group was made up of professional musicians, graduate students and people from the community.

A year later, in response to audience demand for larger-scale repertory, the managing board voted to expand the orchestra to a full 90 players, and that group became the Pacific Symphony. Clark remained as director until 1989, when he resigned after a bitter battle with Spisto and the board over Clark’s musical and administrative capabilities. St. Clair was appointed in 1990. His initial three-year contract recently was extended through 1998.

The effort to offer an orchestra training program is a first for the Pacific Symphony but is not unprecedented in the county. In 1988, the Orange County Philharmonic Society, UC Irvine and the Performing Arts Center launched an ambitious program to establish a summer residency for the Miami-based New World Symphony, a national training orchestra led by Michael Tilson Thomas. But the venture failed after one season when it ran up a deficit of $250,000.

Spisto called the planned institute “a far different venture. The New World needed to be completely supported because (it was) transporting a 90-piece orchestra” from Florida into residence in Orange County and “its costs are more like regional orchestra’s. This will be a very different project . . . because the two organizations bring a lot of in-kind resources.”

For instance, he said, members of the college’s orchestra and music faculty would coach institute musicians. (However, current members of the university’s orchestra would have to audition along with everyone else to become part of the institute orchestra).

BALLET CASTING: The Royal Danish Ballet has announced principal casting for its engagement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center:

* June 9, 8 p.m.:

“Napoli” (Bournonville/N.W. Gade, E. Helsted, H.S. Paulli and H.C. Lumbye): Lis Jeppesen (Teresina); Lloyd Riggins (Gennaro); Arne Villumsen (Golfo).

* June 10, 8 p.m.:

“La Sylphide” (Bournonville/H. Lovenskjold): Heidi Ryom (La Sylphide); Nikolaj Hubbe (James); Sorella Englund (Madge); Christina Olsson (Effy); Michael Weidinger (Gurn).

“Napoli” Act III: Rose Gad (Teresina); Riggins (Gennaro).

* June 11, 8 p.m.:

“Konservatoriet” (The Conservatory) (Bournonville/Paulli): Gad, Olsson, Hubbe.

Pas de Deux from “The Flower Festival in Genzano” (Bournonville/Paulli): Henriette Muus, Johan Kobborg.

“La Sylphide”: Jeppesen, Riggins, Kirsten Simone, Petrusjka Broholm, Morten Munksdorf.

* June 12, 8 p.m.:

“Konservatoriet”: Jeppesen, Ryom, Riggins.

“Flower Festival” Pas de Deux: Olsson, Victor Alvarez.

“La Sylphide”: Gad, Hubbe, Englund, Olsson, Weidinger.

* June 13, 2 p.m.: “Napoli”: Gad, Peter Bo Bendixen, Villumsen.

* June 13, 8 p.m.: “Napoli”: Same as June 9.

* June 14, 1 p.m.: “Napoli”: Ryom, Hubbe, Villumsen.

Tickets: $14 to $55. Information: (714) 556-2787.