Home-Grown Violinist Got an Offer He Couldn’t Refuse

When Frank Almond was considering the Ft. Worth Symphony’s concertmaster position, one perk seemed irresistible: the chance to use a 1710 Stradivarius violin.

“The violin goes with the job,” said Almond, reached in Kingston R.I., where he is performing in the University of Rhode Island Summer Chamber Music Festival. “I’ve had to borrow a lot of instruments for important performances, but having a Strad will be great.”

It’s not that Almond doesn’t own his own instrument. But a Stradivarius is an acquisition outside the budget of most 28-year-old musicians. Almond, a San Diego native who made his mark as a finalist in the 1986 Moscow International Tchaikovsky competition, will join the Ft. Worth, Tex., orchestra this fall. He returns to San Diego next week to play the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the San Diego Youth Symphony on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at Embarcadero Marina Park South, the San Diego Symphony’s outdoor pops site.

Although Almond has pursued a solo career in New York since his student days at Juilliard, he believes the Texas post will not put a damper on his solo playing.

“I’ll still spend some time in New York. The position won’t tie me down that much, even though the annual contract is for 46 weeks. About six weeks are vacation, and the orchestra management has agreed to be flexible. After all, it makes the orchestra look good when I’m on the road performing.”

When Almond visited Ft. Worth in the spring, a city well known for its cultural awareness, including hosting the international Van Cliburn Competition every four years, he was impressed with the local enthusiasm for the Ft. Worth Symphony.

“The orchestra has strong financial backing and public interest. People actually want to go to concerts. I was pleasantly surprised to see the 3,000-seat hall filled the night I attended a concert there.”

Almond is already scheduled to play concertos with the orchestra next season, including the Mendelssohn and the Beethoven. He will also start teaching at Ft. Worth’s Texas Christian University.

“It’s a private school, and they are actually expanding their music department, which goes against the current trend.”

Last year, Almond lost his visiting professor post at San Diego State University because of the university’s severe across-the-board budget cuts, so the irony of joining a school with an expanding music department did not escape him. At SDSU, Almond taught a few violin students and visited area high schools to recruit music majors for the SDSU music department. Two years of careful cultivation evaporated in a single budget cut.

Later this month, Almond will accompany the Youth Symphony as its soloist on a three-week concert tour of Italy. Two years ago, he joined the globe-trotting Youth Orchestra on a Spanish concert tour. But Almond, who has performed in San Diego with some frequency since his prodigy days, vows that Tuesday’s concert will be his last San Diego gig for a couple of seasons.

“I think it’s time to back off for a while. I see it as a self-imposed hiatus, but I feel more comfortable taking a vacation in San Diego than playing there.”

San Diego Youth Symphony, directed by Louis Campiglia, plays Verdi’s Overture to “La Forza Del Destino,” Sibelius’ Violin Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, July 7 at 7:30 p.m. at Embarcadero Marina Park South.

Keene on opera. New York City Opera general director Christopher Keene will be profiled on this week’s CBS Sunday Morning television program. Part of the taping of the Keene profile was done this February in San Diego, when Keene was conducting the San Diego Opera production of Benjamin Britten’s tragedy “The Rape of Lucretia.” Keene was filmed leading a student dress rehearsal of the Britten opera, and San Diego general director Ian Campbell and artistic administrator Karen Keltner were also interviewed for the program. CBS Sunday Morning airs Sunday at 8 a.m. on Channel 8.

Unusual merit. After its annual competition, the Musical Merit Foundation of Greater San Diego awarded more than $18,000 to young San Diego-area musicians last month. La Jolla pianist Hiroko Kunitake, a student of Jane Bastien and a recent graduate of La Jolla High School, won the $4,000 first prize. Kunitake won Musical Merit’s first prize last year, and in 1990 she won the San Diego Symphony’s Young Artist Concerto Competition.

Second place was shared by pianist Hong Lin, an undergraduate at USC, and tenor Jose Medina, a pupil of Jane Westbrook. Each musician was awarded $3,000. Tenor Andrew Richards of National City won the $2,000 third prize. Richards, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, will participate in the Music Academy of the West this summer.

Other winners in the Musical Merit competition included saxophonist Jeremy Justeson, pianist Yu-Mei Wei, pianist Andrew Campbell, violinist Cheryl Norman, pianist Andi Buchanan and soprano Nancy Coulson.

CRITIC’S CHOICE: COOL NIGHTS BEST FOR HOT ORGAN FESTIVAL

Civic organist Robert Plimpton opens the San Diego Summer Organ Festival Monday at 8 p.m. on Balboa Park’s Spreckels Organ. Plimpton will be joined by Calvin Price, San Diego Symphony principal trumpet, and soprano Virginia Sublett.

Cool summer evenings are the best time to hear the mighty Austin organ: The park is quiet and the atmosphere flatters the instruments sound. The three musicians will perform J. S. Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Chabrier and Lehar.