Vollmer’s O.C. Legacy Imperiled : Arts: Philharmonic Society fears back-room maneuvering by Arts Center will lead to blander offerings, more pressure to merge with Pacific Symphony.

There will be no Hollywood Bowl Orchestra concerts at the Orange County Performing Arts Center next year--or maybe ever. The Ballet Folklorico de Mexico, which sold out a concert there last year, may never return. The Chieftains, Ireland’s foremost group of traditional musicians, may be banned from the building. The Los Angeles Philharmonic could be making fewer and fewer stops there from now on.

Why? Because center president Thomas R. Kendrick doesn’t want any of those groups in his hall, according to Erich Vollmer, the outgoing executive director of the Orange County Philharmonic Society.

Under Vollmer, the Philharmonic Society has spent years expanding the range and quality of offerings at the center, presenting all the above named groups and more (see box on F24). Kendrick has been loathe to book anything other than dance, some chamber music, Broadway musicals and a little jazz now and again, but in the past has gone along with the society’s far more adventuresome and challenging programming.

Now, though--even though the center is primarily a rental facility--”Tom is assuming the role of making artistic decisions” about what others can present there, says Vollmer, who leaves OCPS today to become new executive director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. “He feels that’s a totally appropriate role for him.”

Kendrick has refused comment.

Society president Steven Lupinacci said last week that the center will not approve dates the society has requested for a proposed series that includes ethnic dance and other populist attractions. He said the society has revised the series twice in an effort to satisfy center objections, but the center still refuses to answer one way or the other. With each passing day, the acts--who have to firm up their own schedules--become harder and harder to book.

Lupinacci charged that the center is doing this--and is deferring a decision to extend credit to the society--to pressure the society into merging with the Pacific Symphony. Proponents argue that such a merger could cut administrative costs for the orchestra and the society; opponents feel it would lead to a decline in the number of visiting orchestras. Vollmer thinks center officials support a merger because it might benefit the center, not because it would be a boon to music lovers.

In any case, center chairman-designate Thomas Nielsen has refused to confirm or deny the charge that his fellow officials are pressuring OCPS. All he will say is that the series of concerts in question “is not one that is a ‘classical’ music series.”

“They’ve told us,” Lupinacci says, “they’d prefer we present only classical symphonic music in their hall.”

Vollmer says popular attractions are important because they could help the nonprofit society pay bills, including its current debt to the center of about $75,000.

“We have been soundly rebuffed by the center about starting our own light classics series,” he says. “So here we are being denied the opportunity to do presentations that bring in revenue which would help support some major events (such as the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam) that we know aren’t going to be profitable through ticket sales.”

He discounts the contention that, since the center is owed money by the Society, center officials should have some say in Society programming.

“There’s no danger of us not paying the center,” he says. “We requested financial assistance last year. They suggested they do for us what they had done for the Pacific, which was a deferral. They did that for two years for the symphony. Last year was our first year, and we paid it off.”

It’s not the only argument that Vollmer is quick to poke holes in.

When the society proposed booking the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, he says, “we were told we would not be allowed to present it because it would conflict with the (Pacific Symphony) pops series plus the center’s own presentations.”

About 17 members of the Bowl Orchestra also play in the Pacific. But booking both orchestras causes no conflicts, according to Frank Amoss, president of the Orange County Musicans Union, Local 7 of the American Federation of Musicians. “It’s just more work for everyone,” Amoss said Wednesday. And the only “pops presentations” that the center itself offers are traveling Broadway revivals (that generally have received poor reviews).

Vollmer went on to say that Kendrick doesn’t want the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the hall because he thinks “it should have a lower profile . . . because the Pacific Symphony has gone on record as saying that the appearances of the Los Angeles Philharmonic inhibit their growth.

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of. I can’t help the fact that the L.A. Philharmonic is only 45 miles away. But it’s a damn good orchestra, bringing the best conductors, the best soloists. Why shouldn’t Orange County hear it, without having to go up to Los Angeles?”

And “how does (the L.A. Philharmonic) inhibit (the Pacific Symphony) to grow?,” he asked. “The assumption is that if the L.A. Phil didn’t come, all those people would buy PSO tickets? No. If there were no other orchestras playing in Orange County, then they might buy PSO tickets. . . . (Besides) there are a lot of people who buy (PSO) tickets who don’t buy our stuff. We have very different audiences.”

When the Philharmonic Society began presenting a wider range of offerings in 1987, “there was never one objection raised from the center,” Vollmer said. But now center management is exerting new demands.

So what’s the problem?

Vollmer agrees that it’s all to promote a merger with the Pacific. “The Pacific is important to the center’s plan to build a (second) concert hall,” he said. “What is there to rationalize building a concert hall if you don’t have a growing symphony?

“I also think the center feels that its scheduling would be simplified. . . .”

Meanwhile, he said, “the PSO is important to the center from purely a financial standpoint--for the nights it rents.” But, he asked, what about a philosophical standpoint? What of the center’s mission not only to promote home-grown product but to maintain a balance of what’s best from outside the county?

The society does both, Vollmer noted. “Certainly our education programs fall into the category of promoting the best of what’s here. But because of the nature of our presentations, we are not a regional organization in the same sense that the PSO or the chorales or the opera.”