Symphony Set for 69th Season in Classic Style : Music: The sound is familiar but the financial picture has changed. The orchestra faces a potential $50,000 budget shortfall and will play a fund-raising concert Nov. 30.

The Glendale Symphony Orchestra will open its 69th season Sunday with a flourish of the popular classic style that has brought success in years past--but potential budget problems strike a sour note.

Musical Director Lalo Schifrin will conduct the 90-piece orchestra in his arrangement of “Three Tenors Sing the World’s Greatest Hits” in the first performance of the 1990 World Cup Grande Finale since its premiere in Rome.

Although the original featured Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti, the Grammy Award-winning composer and conductor is confident his adaptation will play so well in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion that “the audience won’t know the difference.”

Tenors Dennis McNeil, Jose Medina and Eduardo Villa “have their own individuality,” Schifrin said. “They are fantastic, really first-class.”

Meanwhile, the orchestra, whose budget has been consistently in the black until last year, has scheduled a Nov. 30 fund-raiser to forestall a potential $50,000 shortfall.

“Initially, I’ve got concerns,” Glendale Symphony treasurer Alan C. Emmons said of this year’s finances. “It looks like ticket sales on season tickets are running behind.”

Last season, the symphony went into the red for the first time, suffering a $5,000 shortfall in its $553,000 budget.

This year, increased operating expenses have pushed the budget to $580,000, while ticket sales and contributions have declined, Emmons said.

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In an attempt to make up the shortfall, the orchestra will perform Nov. 30 during the Red Lion Hotel’s grand premiere. Ticket sales, at $100 each, could raise up to $60,000, Emmons said. Without it, he said, the organization would have to find another fund-raiser or make some cuts.

Ticket sales last year made up 45% of the orchestra’s budget, with the remainder coming mainly from private and corporate donations and city and county grants.

Musically, the new season, Schifrin’s fourth, will carry on the orchestra’s tradition of contemporary and classical fare with an emphasis on entertainment.

“The interesting thing about the Glendale audience and subscribers is that they are versatile,” said the four-time Grammy winner and multiple Oscar nominee. “My background is in the classics, jazz, Hollywood movies and television, and this is one of the things I like.”

Schifrin’s eclectic musical taste flavors the season’s six programs, such as the Feb. 28 concert, Jazz and the Classics. That performance will blend a ragtime by Stravinsky, Kurt Weill’s “Mack the Knife” and Gershwin’s “Cuban Overture.”

“And we’ll have the Milhaud ‘La Creation du Monde,’ Schifrin said. It was a ballet based on African legends and it was to be performed by African people in Paris, which they did--it’s a great piece.”

Also scheduled that evening is the West Coast premiere of Schifrin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with Mirian Conti as guest soloist. “Blues,” “Tango” and “Carnival of the Americas” make up the three movements in this concerto.

The April 10 concert, A Musical Journey, will include Dvorak’s classical “Concerto for Violoncello,” Arthur Honegger’s modern “Pacific 231” and John Adams’ minimalist avant-garde “A Short Ride in the Fast Machine.”

“It’s music about machines,” Schifrin said of the Honegger and Adams pieces. “ ‘Pacific 231’ is based on a steam engine and the whole symphony orchestra imitates a train.”

Schifrin is rounding out the season with the May 8 Gala Benefit Evening. He will open the concert with “Romancing Hollywood,” featuring Rosemary Clooney.

The remaining concerts include:

* The Glorious Sounds of Christmas, Dec. 8, conducted by Schifrin and featuring vocalist Steve Tyrell and 50 members of the Armenian Youth Choir singing carols in Armenian, the Valley Master Chorale at Northridge and the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts Choir.

* A Festival of Sounds and Images, Jan. 31, conducted by Schifrin, with Walter Matthau as special guest narrating Saint-Saens’ “Carnival of the Animals.” Also featured will be Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” and Beethoven’s “Prometheus Overture” and “Concerto for Violin.”

The emphasis on contemporary fare demanded by the Glendale audience has subjected the orchestra to criticism over the years. But Schifrin defends their tastes and says the audience’s versatility makes it possible to “do things no other orchestra is doing.

“I’m having a great time,” he said. “There is a great feeling of exhilaration and happiness. Some of the Glendale concerts are so rewarding it takes me a long time to come down.”