2 Orchestras Boost County Cultural Evolution : Boris Brott leads symphony through a bold opener. And the new chamber ensemble bravely launches its first concert season at Ventura College.

In hindsight, last season was a catalytic one in the humble, trusty continuum of classical music in Ventura County.

Not only did the Ventura County Symphony induct a new man at the podium--the first new one in a three-decade history--but a new, upstart orchestra jumped into the musical waters across town.

Such a relative flurry of activity makes this season especially worthy of scrutiny. Now that the dust and hype has, more or less, settled, it’s easier to see the lay of the musical landscape.

On Oct. 2, Boris Brott led the symphony solidly through a bold season opener at the Oxnard Civic Auditorium. Last Saturday, Burns Taft bravely led his Ventura County Chamber Orchestra--the new, “other” orchestra--kicking off the ensemble’s first concert season at Ventura College.

Two concerts last spring gave a strong indication of the chamber orchestra’s impressive musical ambitions and its potential importance in the scheme of the area’s musical agenda. Ideally, the presence of the two active orchestras bodes well for the cultural evolution of the county.

Despite some indications of discord between the two orchestras in the process of the chamber orchestra’s formation early last year, it can hardly be said that the bodies operate independently of, or in direct competition with, one another.

This county is too small to allow for productive feuding. Master Chorale, a group also directed by Taft, played an important role in fleshing out Prokofiev’s “Alexander Nevsky” in the symphony’s opener.

Contrasts between the orchestras are telling.

The chamber orchestra works with more modest means than the symphony. Along with the differences of the cavernous space of the Oxnard Civic versus the intimate quarters of the college auditorium, and the different payroll demands, there are the various fiscal demands.

Both orchestras, of course, face the fundamental task of meeting overall costs, filling seats and coffers at a time when money and audiences are tight. Hence, the artful balance of crowd-pleasing tactics and adventurousness are addressed in the orchestra’s respective programs.

At this tender stage of the season, though, the going has been kinder, gentler.

Brott opened with a program of Elgar, Prokofiev and John Biggs. Taft’s “Magic and Mystical Strings” program wove its way assuredly from Bach to pre-serial Schoenberg to Grieg in a baroque state of mind.

By and large a clean and efficient conductor, Taft leads his charges tautly, keeping the cadences propulsive and the lines shiny, befitting Bach’s neatly ordered profundity. The baroque master’s Suite No. 2 in b minor mediates its insistent dance rhythms with a somber, minor mode harmonic cast.

The orchestra’s clean, energetic reading brought out the innate luster of the music. The challenge was met firmly by flute soloist Carol Lockart, a Ventura native now living in Los Angeles after studies at Eastman and elsewhere.

Things didn’t go quite as well with Schoenberg’s “Transfigured Night,” a far more mercurial score, with its swerving post-romantic terrain of temperament and dynamics.

In this piece, strings were not without occasional intonation ruffles and some rough seam work in the ensemble. Even so, the spirit was always willing and the performance level generally high.

“Transfigured Night,” inspired by Richard Dehmel’s “Wife and World,” is, along with “Gurre-Lieder,” an example of safe, audience-friendly Schoenberg.

In the 1899 tone poem, Schoenberg’s most frequently performed but ultimately his least representative work, the composer shuffles through residual Wagnerian terrain. By 1909, the influence of romanticism would be forcefully disavowed by Schoenberg through his radical, rational 12-tone system.

His tone poem begins slowly, darkly, ruefully, in a funereal way, but with impressionistic flurries and flourishes. By the time it reaches its resolution, sailing out on a soft breeze of tranquillity, the work has ridden a roller coaster of emotions.

After intermission, the program achieved a clever cross-historical full circle with Grieg’s neo-baroque Holberg Suite. For the Grieg, the orchestra was back in fine polished form.

Though certainly not as formally regimented or restrained as Bach, the contrapuntal designs and ornamentations hearken back to the baroque. Moments of frothy cheer and romantic gushing reveal the piece’s 19th-Century origins.

A nearly full house at the college gave a deservedly rousing ovation. The appreciative sentiment, no doubt, went out not only to a satisfying evening of music-making, but to the orchestra’s grander ambition--to make Ventura a more musically vivid locale.

Details

* WHAT: Ventura County Chamber Orchestra’s next concert

* WHEN: Dec. 4, 8 p.m.

* WHERE: Ventura College Theatre, 4667 Telegraph Road, Ventura.

* COST: Center seats $18, side seats $14.

* FYI: For more information, call 648-3146