PIERCE COLLEGE : Sales Push for Music Guild Series

Fearing that the Music Guild’s annual chamber music concert series at Pierce College may be discontinued because of poor attendance, the college Music Department is making an extra effort to sell tickets this year.

Last year, the first time the series was presented on the Woodland Hills campus, an average of 200 tickets were sold for each concert, said Stephen Piazza, department chairman.

But at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles, the Music Guild sold about 1,100 tickets per concert for the same series, which features performances by four national and international string quartets, he said.

“It’s a tough sell,” Piazza said. “Anything new doesn’t have a sense of history and tradition behind it. At the Wilshire Ebell, it is the thing to do. At Pierce, it is not the thing to do.”

Piazza said he fears the Pierce series may be canceled if the Music Guild fails to break even.

Piazza’s goal is to fill two-thirds of the college’s Performing Arts Building theater this year and eventually sell all 375 seats.

“The Valley has been accused of being a real cultural wasteland, which to a certain extent is true,” he said. “This concert series was developed to help rectify the situation. That was the vision we had.”

This year’s series will begin with a concert by the American String Quartet at 8 p.m. Thursday. Other concerts will feature the Da Vinci String Quartet on Dec. 8, the Ysaye String Quartet of Paris on Feb. 16 and the Prazak String Quartet of Prague on March 2.

Tickets are available for $20 each. Tickets for seniors are priced at $15 and for students, $5.

Although tickets for the Pierce concerts cost about the same as those for the Wilshire Ebell, Piazza said Pierce may be the better buy.

There is “a great sense of sonic and visual intimacy” at the Pierce theater because it’s so small, Piazza said.