Previn Tops La Jolla SummerFest Fare : Music: The conductor, who is included in the annual 10-concert event, says that it’s ‘the best-run chamber music festival I’ve ever seen.’

Heiichiro Ohyama gets by with a little help from his friends. Fortunately for the La Jolla SummerFest, the annual 10-concert chamber music festival that opens tonight at Sherwood Auditorium, Ohyama’s circle of friends includes Andre Previn, clarinetist David Shifrin, pianist Yefim Bronfman and cellist Gary Hoffman, to name but a few.

Previn is unstinting in his praise for Ohyama’s direction of SummerFest, which he called “the best-run chamber music festival I’ve ever seen” in a phone conversation from his Bedford, N.Y., home. Ohyama’s and Previn’s mutual admiration goes back to Los Angeles Philharmonic days when Ohyama was principal violist and assistant conductor during Previn’s reign as music director.

“The (SummerFest) artists are looked after phenomenally well, and nobody grinds his teeth at having to work with XYZ,” Previn says. “We have a good time together, and it also helps that it is a beautiful place.”

Chamber music and composition have assumed greater significance in Previn’s schedule since he stepped down from his post as music director of the Philharmonic in 1989. Although he holds the title of laureate conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, he is otherwise a guest conductor without a music director’s administrative headaches.

In addition to his regular appearances at SummerFest--Previn has played or conducted in five of its seven seasons--the versatile musician plans his own series of programs for New York’s Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, plays a dozen concerts at the summer-long Caramoor Festival in Katonah, N.Y., and has his own chamber series in both London and Vienna.

“I’ve always told my conducting students who play an instrument well to play as much chamber music as possible,” Previn says. “It calls for a different set of ears--in chamber music you hear absolutely everything. And apart from anything educational, chamber music is more fun than anything else.”

At this year’s SummerFest, Previn will play piano trios by Ravel and Debussy with violinist Julie Rosenfeld and cellist Hoffman, and RCA will record the two piano trios the following week in New York. In previous seasons, Previn’s SummerFest gigs have produced recordings of Schumann’s piano quartets, Mozart’s piano quartets and Previn’s own jazz trio.

Previn will also accompany Carol Wincenc in the Prokofiev Flute Sonata and play in Poulenc’s Sextet for piano and winds. His choice of 20th-Century repertory, like that of Ohyama, favors composers of a more traditional bent. Previn bristled at the very mention of the musical avant-garde, although he quickly added that he feels a responsibility to champion contemporary American composers when he performs in Europe,

“There are some awfully good contemporary composers here, such as John Harbison, Steven Stucky and Harold Shapero. I try my best to trundle them across the Atlantic,” he says.

La Jolla SummerFest: Today-Aug. 30 at San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art’s Sherwood Auditorium, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla. Chamber music programs at 8 p.m. Today, Aug. 19, 21, 22, 26, 28 and 29; chamber music at 7 p.m. Aug. 16 and 30; Heiichiro Ohyama conducts festival chamber orchestra 4 p.m. Aug. 23. Single tickets most events: $27. Information on tickets and times of open rehearsals and master classes: La Jolla Chamber Music Society, (619) 459-3724.