MUSIC : Conductor Comes to a Crossroads : As South Coast Symphony Faces Demise, Its Artistic Director Looks at His Choices

The South Coast Symphony’s board of directors recently handed conductor Larry Granger a birthday surprise he wishes he could return. Exactly a week after Granger turned 44, the board voted to shut down the whole organization unless at least $80,000 could be raised in six weeks.

Nobody expects that the money will found so quickly, least of all Granger. So the conductor, who has led the group since 1973, is effectively out of a job and the Costa Mesa-based orchestra out of existence.

Granger feels blindsided by the decision. “I was not consulted in any depth about different possibilities or alternatives,” Granger said in a phone interview last week. “This happened very, very quickly. All of us who were staff had our salaries cut immediately. Apparently, there was just no money to pay us.”

The orchestra had been counting on a $100,000 matching grant from a private source for a summer series at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa, according to board Chairwoman Arlene Schafer. With a fall-off in corporate and individual donations, the orchestra couldn’t come up with its share of the money.

The decision was the last in a series of financial difficulties for the orchestra. South Coast almost folded in 1989 when it faced projected costs of $120,000 for a new season and at least $30,000 of accumulated debt from offering additional concerts at Santa Ana High School. But through cost-cutting and tight management, the orchestra managed to stay afloat.

Granger had been isolated from the financial side of running things for the last five years, partly as a result of his own “letting-go process to allow the orchestra to grow,” and partly because of a board policy that separates managerial and artistic duties.

Consequently, Granger said, he had no idea how bad things were. He had recently turned down a job offer at Pomona College because he didn’t think he could have handled the additional duties beyond the South Coast and the Santa Cruz County Symphony, which he took over in October. The Pomona job subsequently went to someone else.

“If I had known we were in desperate straits, I would have made a different decision,” he said ruefully.

Granger can fall back on his salary at Santa Cruz, but even so he will be “suffering major hardships. I lost a major part of my income,” he said. He declined to specify his salary at either institution.

During his tenure, Granger oversaw spectacular change in the orchestra. South Coast began as a youth group of 17 players when it was founded in 1972 by Edward Anderson, a music teacher in Long Beach. Community musicians quickly began joining in, and by 1978 the group had to be split into two ensembles--a youth and an adult contingent--because it had grown so large.

“It didn’t make sense to keep calling it a youth symphony when it was an adult symphony,” Granger said. For about three years, they tried the name Southern California Repertoire Orchestra.

Seeking greater community support, the orchestra moved to Costa Mesa in 1984 and adopted its current name. Things began swimmingly, with well-attended concerts at Orange Coast College.

“But that was before the Orange County Performing Arts Center came in and put the Pacific Symphony right in our community,” Granger said. “That created difficult problems for us. It made it difficult for people to recognize the difference between the two orchestras.”

The Pacific Symphony had been playing for years at Santa Ana High School before the opening of the Center in 1986.

Still, South Coast felt encouraged enough to venture beyond its home base at Orange Coast. In 1991, the group began offering additional concerts at the new Irvine Barclay Theatre. Ironically, while the Irvine Barclay concerts sold out, sales began to fall off at the college, and programs there had to be canceled.

Plans to renovate the college’s Robert B. Moore theater forced a complete move to the Irvine theater this season. But that also meant fewer ticket sales overall.

“Ticket sales went down when we went to the Barclay Theatre, but only because the hall seats only 750,” Granger said. “We sold every seat in the house. We sold all the tickets we could possibly sell at that facility.

“But those sales could not could offset drops in corporate and private donations which every nonprofit organization was experiencing. A very high percentage of our budget was realized through donations.”

Still, Granger is not calling it quits yet. He says he will meet with some of the musicians within two weeks to talk about resurrecting the orchestra, but perhaps in another community. Other communities, he said, are expanding arts programs and building arts facilities, he said, but he declined to specify any he is interested in.

“It may mean a new name and not being in Orange County,” he said. “But I’m not sure as artistic director I’m totally ready to disband our achievements. We need to explore some things. It may not happen, but my conscience would be satisfied that the musicians have been thought about and some consideration has been given to them.”

Even if the orchestra does fold, Granger believes that “we made a difference here. We provided a lot of opportunities for musicians and for an audience that cared about building an affordable institution that cared about young people.

“We were committed to substance over image, which probably hurt us a little. By that I mean we were trying to be here for the long haul. We didn’t rely on major guest artists to sell tickets. We relied upon community support, and to a large extent we achieved that.”

As for his own future, Granger hopes that there will be other opportunities here.

“I’ve been in Southern California for 30 years,” he said. “If my services are desired, it looks as if I’m going to have some time.”