Up The Coast : CLASSICAL MUSIC : A Noted Academy : Each summer for eight weeks a Santa Barbara estate becomes an international center for students hoping to advance their careers.

A deceptive air of calm hovers outside the transformed Santa Barbara estate called Miraflores--a.k.a. the Music Academy of the West. Koi fish drift idly in a pool ringed by a manicured lawn.

For 10 months of the year, this property is eerily still, apart from the occasional wedding or concert. But, come summertime, the sound of music is never far away, spilling from rehearsal studios, halls, and other available rooms. It is the sound of furrow-browed concentration, the sound of careers being born.

For the past 45 years, the Music Academy has hosted an intensive summer program for students who travel here from around the world to study. The internationally respected school has been dubbed “Tanglewood of the West,” for its comparable quality to that Massachusetts-based summer program.

Outside the academy’s Lehmann Hall, two large portraits line the walls in a symbolic face-off. In one, famed late soprano Lotte Lehmann, who taught here, is seen in operatic costume. In the other, Mrs. John Percival Jefferson, who owned the estate bequeathed to the academy in 1951, sits by the fireplace patting a pug-nosed dog. In the balance between art and patronage lies the ongoing Music Academy saga.

President Dr. Robert Holmes noted that “our sole raison d’etre here is these 140 students for these eight weeks.”

What is the academy’s public profile? It depends who you’re asking. Many locals recognize the academy’s program as an invaluable summer resource, even the highlight of the music year in town. Others are unaware of its significance in the larger scheme of the music world.

“This is a city with a lot of people who are interested in music and art,” Holmes said. “There are people who live here because of their love of the academy. People will move into this neighborhood, for example, because they love to come to our master classes.”

The academy’s concert series features stellar faculty performances, surprisingly strong student performers, and such guests soloists as Glenn Dichtorow, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic.

But besides its official night concert schedule, the academy also opens its doors to the public for the master classes during the week. Far from being pedantic, these classes can be informative and entertaining--for the audience as well as the students.

In a recent violin class, teacher Zvi Zeitlin spoke to student Per Hammerstrom about a Sibelius concerto the student had just performed. “The first three notes, you show the scenery. Then, you become the human in that scenery.”

Later, he zeroed in on a particularly difficult glissando--a rapid slide up or down the musical scale. “There is an illness that some violinists have that I call AGDS--Acquired Glissando Deficiency Syndrome. You have cats at home? Practice on them.”

Some of the most popular master classes are those led by vocal teacher Martin Katz, who has an innate flair for drama in the classroom, in this case, one that’s posh and chandeliered.

After mezzo-soprano Anita Krause sang Dominique Argento’s “Robert Browning,” Katz asked her to “put a longer ‘r’ on the word ‘real’ there to give it a different meaning.” Krause complied.

“The difference is astounding,” said Katz. “Now I feel as if I’m in the boudoir of your feelings.”

In the “Opera Scenes” class last Saturday, teacher Daniel Helfgot was emphasizing the importance of subtle gestures in evoking drama. “Think about the coyote and the road runner. The coyote expends all the energy and the road runner only says ‘beep beep.’ The less you do, the more powerful it can be.”

In Holmes’ large office, there sits a grand piano, now used mostly as an ad-hoc desk for excess paperwork. Holmes, the first paid head of the mostly volunteer-run organization, has been at the helm for five years now.

“A major change I’ve seen is in the fiscal stability of the institution. We’re in a lot better shape, financially, than we were five years ago. We made some changes in the faculty. We’ve improved the organization as much as we can.”

What hasn’t changed much, said Holmes, is the program.

“In my opinion, the program, while small and very limited, is, in its own way, the ideal program. It’s ideal partly because of the limitations that have more or less unconsciously been placed on it over the years.

“The bigger an arts organization gets, the harder it is to survive. Aspen (another prominent summer music program) is having a terrible time now, and it’s 10 times as big as this. The more you try to do, the bigger you try to be. It’s almost a self-fulfilling prophecy--the closer you are to collapsing. I guess what I’m talking about is the importance of caution and prudence in the arts.”

This year there are 140 students, about one-third of the students who applied, with an average age of 23. Holmes explained that “most of the students come because of the faculty. If you have great faculty, students will follow. Some of the faculty bring their own students.”

A new, experimental program this year focuses on instrumental accompaniment, headed by pianist Anne Eberson, of the Cleveland Institute of Music. A 20-year veteran in the field, Eberson has noticed a marked increase in attention to the field.

“I see myself as being an accompanist liberation person,” she said. “That’s what I teach the students--that they have to set a standard and they have to play as though they could be doing anything they wanted to with their pianistic skills.

“They have to play with that kind of conviction and polish and expertise. Then they add to that the subtleties of working with other people and being sensitive to another line. In a way, those of us who are devoted to it see it as being even more artistically challenging.”

Her own accompaniment skills will be on display at next Tuesday’s concert, when she plays the support role for Zeitlin’s performance of Schumann’s Violin Sonata in D Minor.

Zeitlin, now in his 20th year, is an academy veteran along with pianist Jerome Lowenthal. Head of the violin department at the Eastman School of Music during the school year, Zeitlin also teaches at various points around the globe.

Last week, before a concert at the Lobero Theater, he sat down for an interview at an outdoor restaurant.

“This is quite challenging because 14 of the violinists in the orchestra are students of mine, and you have to practice what you preach,” he said. “But it’s very gratifying. It means a lot more to me than to just give a concert for a fee, because of the interaction with the students and my colleagues, my peers, great world-class artists.”

WHERE AND WHEN

* The Festival Orchestra at the Lobero Theater, 33 E. Canon Perdido, in Santa Barbara on Saturday.

* A Chamber Concert at the Music Academy, 1070 Fairway Road in Santa Barbara, Abravanel Hall, will be performed on Tuesday. For more information on the Music Academy’s summer schedule of master classes ($7 and $5, students and seniors), concerts ($15) and recitals ($7 and $5, students and seniors), call 969-4726.