MUSIC / CHRIS PASLES : Philharmonic Society’s Vollmer Plans to Stay Tuned : Although the director is leaving the Orange County presenting group for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, he will help with the transition.

Although Erich Vollmer is leaving the Orange County Philharmonic Society to take over the top administrative post at the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra as of Feb. 15, he’ll remain a regular presence in Orange County.

“The plan at this point is that I will be available to OCPS on a consultant basis for however long that’s deemed necessary, even to the point of perhaps spending a day or so a week down here,” Vollmer, the society’s executive director for eight years, said Monday after orchestra officials made his appointment official.

“The Chamber Orchestra is amenable to that. I don’t want to sever ties down here that fast.”

Vollmer, 49, joined the Philharmonic Society in 1984 and subsequently oversaw a major expansion of its programming as well as a rise in the operating budget, from about $750,000 his first year to a high of $2.5 million in 1992. The society presents virtually all major touring orchestras that appear at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. It also presents numerous chamber-music concerts, some in conjunction with the Laguna Beach Chamber Music Society, and runs the county’s most extensive arts outreach and education program for local schoolchildren.

He called his tenure “a wonderful long time. I really had to think long and hard before making the decision to go to LACO,” he said. “But the prospect of working with (LACO’s new music director) Christof Perick was one of the determining factors. There is a lot to learn from someone like that.”

Vollmer is leaving at a time when the recession has made touring unaffordable for many orchestras and has hampered fund-raising efforts by presenting organizations such as the Philharmonic Society.

He doesn’t expect to escape those problems in his new job. “Whether it’s an orchestra or a presenting organization, you have to raise money, be concerned about public relations, be concerned with marketing,” he said.

“The primary difference will be that I will have a group of musicians to look after on a day-in and day-out basis, instead of saying hello to an orchestra one night and goodby the next night.”

He says the Philharmonic Society will find future orchestral programming “harder,” but that there are “still a lot of areas that we have only dabbled in that are worth exploring.

“For instance, the whole ethnic-dance area. We sold out the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico in November. That’s something to look into more.

“Certainly there’s more to do with the younger artists, which would be more appropriate for the Irvine Barclay Theatre. There’s an awful lot we could bring to the county, that the county should experience and that’s outside of the tried-and-true.”

OCPS’ 1993-94 season, his “farewell” season, is virtually in place, he said, and will be “very exciting.” The details of that season, celebrating the society’s 40th anniversary, will be announced in late February or early March.

Vollmer’s departure has renewed speculation over a merger between the society and the Pacific Symphony, a plan that was widely discussed in 1991 but faltered under the onslaught of private and public criticism.

“If the truth be known,” Vollmer said, “merger talks have never completely ceased. Board members continue to talk with board members. The subject has never been totally dormant. I think that my departure might bring them a little bit more to the forefront. It’s an opportune time to discuss it.”

Still, he said, the society plans to establish a search committee to find his successor “regardless of where any potential talks with the symphony, or with any other organization, go. It’s responsible for the society to keep all of its options open.”

One thing Vollmer won’t have to deal with any more, however, is whether people recognize that it’s the Philharmonic Society that sponsors all symphonic activity at the center, other than Pacific Symphony concerts.

“Honestly, the name recognition issue really had nothing do with my leaving,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve been putting up with that for eight years.”

WINDS TO THE AIRWAVES: Sunday’s concert by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Winds at Founders Hall at the Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa was taped for broadcast over National Public Radio, according to a center spokesman. No date for the broadcast has been set. It will air on the “Performance Today” program. This was the first concert taped in the small theater. No plans for future broadcasts are set.