Rock Will Slip Into Center in Guise of Art Garfunkel

Singer Art Garfunkel will play the Orange County Performing Arts Center on June 19. In making the announcement Monday, the center’s top executive denied that the booking--the first time the center has presented a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame under its own aegis--represented a reversal of his opposition to allowing rock music in the hall.

Garfunkel has had a sporadic solo musical career since breaking with partner Paul Simon in 1971, and has also acted occasionally in such films as “Carnal Knowledge” and Nicolas Roeg’s “Bad Timing.” Garfunkel sang lead on “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” Simon & Garfunkel’s biggest hit. His biggest solo hit was “All I Know,” which reached No. 9 in Billboard in 1973.

Center President Thomas R. Kendrick said the center had hoped to present Garfunkel as part of an “American Song” series, but was unable to line up dates with other performers, despite contacting agents for numerous artists, “from Natalie Cole to Bonnie Raitt.”

Unlike virtually every other major performing-arts facility in the country, the Orange County center has never booked performers from the worlds of rock or country music. The only such acts who have played the building did so through rentals to outside promoters: Ray Charles and the Oak Ridge Boys, who appeared in pops concerts presented by the Pacific Symphony; and Johnny Cash, who appeared in 1988 via an independent promoter.

Still, Kendrick insisted the center is not “anti-pop,” explaining that scheduling pop and country is difficult because the hall is competing with the outdoor amphitheaters during the summer, when dates are available. He said virtually no weekend dates are available from October to May, during the peak of the musical theater, dance and symphonic seasons.

The center’s own schedules for those months of the current season, however, show at least 15 Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays with nothing booked in the 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall.

Also, Kendrick said, the center is unwilling to subsidize pop and country acts, as it does dance and jazz, so pop and country acts must be popular enough to fill the hall. Jazz, Kendrick said, is a “uniquely American art form, and we feel better about subsidizing jazz than we feel about pop and country.”

Kendrick said booking Garfunkel was not an attempt to counterbalance a reduction in the number of touring musicals and ballet companies, which has resulted in fewer performances at the center this season.

The center’s main emphasis remains on symphonic music, dance, opera and musical theater, although Kendrick said the center would like to expand pop and country offerings.

“There are scores of venues for pop and country, and only a handful on the West Coast doing what we’re trying to do,” Kendrick said. He pointed to Harry Connick Jr., Sarah Brightman and Michael Feinstein as pop performers the center has presented in the past.

Kendrick said the center is not an appropriate venue for “hard rock,” but the music of the Who may be heard in the hall: the center is hoping to bring a revival of the rock opera “Tommy,” now on Broadway, to Costa Mesa.

The Pace production originated in La Jolla before moving to New York. “I think you’ll be seeing it here,” Kendrick said, although no dates have been announced.

Additionally, the music of rock star Prince is the basis for the new ballet “Billboards,” which the Joffrey Ballet will dance at the center in July.

Tickets for Garfunkel’s concert range from $20 to $38 and will go on sale May 16. Information: (714) 556-2787.