With Tricks Up Its Sleeve : Music: The Orange County Chamber Orchestra hopes to work financial magic as it opens its season with a dream-inspired treat.

Halloween may be the occasion for witches and ghosts to prowl the night. But the conductor of the Orange County Chamber Orchestra is hoping music lovers won’t be scared off from the Sunday afternoon concert at the Irvine Barclay Theatre that opens the group’s 11th season.

“I figured it would be fun to do a Halloween concert,” conductor and orchestra founder Micah Levy said in a recent phone interview. “The Halloween theme is ‘Treats and Tricks,’ which makes it easy. Anything is a treat.”

Part one of the program includes works by Corelli, Gershwin and Tartini, including Tartini’s “Devil’s Trill” Sonata. The work gets its name from a dream the composer supposedly had in which the devil played a fabulous violin solo.

“Tartini awoke from the dream, took up his violin and tried to play it,” Levy said. “Even though the ‘Devil’s Trill’ Sonata is probably the best thing he ever wrote, he said it pales in comparison to what the devil played in his dream.”

The “tricks” portion forms the second half and includes Leopold Mozart’s “Toy Symphony” (once attributed to Haydn) and Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony. Leopold was Wolfgang’s father.

“The ‘Toy Symphony’ isn’t exactly a trick,” Levy said. “It was intended actually to be played with children playing the toy instruments. Obviously, the toy instruments are for kids. The true name is ‘Kindersymphonie,’ which means ‘children’s symphony.’ ”

As for the “Farewell” Symphony, the surprise is that the musicians surreptitiously leave the stage one by one toward the end. This was Haydn’s subtle way of telling his patron that the musicians wanted and needed a vacation.

“When something is a real surprise, that’s a trick, too,” Levy said.

Levy hopes to pull off a financial trick as well. Two seasons ago the group had to cancel half its season because of low ticket sales and declining donations.

“Last year, we simply had a smaller season, a smaller number of concerts and smaller orchestras,” Levy said. “This season is about the same. But it appears that things are going to be better for us. I’m much more optimistic than I’ve been in a long time.”

His final concert last season, for instance, was “a complete sellout,” he said, although “a lot of people came to see the soloists and that was also an all-Mozart program. That’s more of a draw than other kinds of programs.

“We’re slowly trying somehow or other to get a little bit bigger and not spend a lot of money doing it and get back on our feet. And we will.”

Levy says this week’s appointment of Barbara Palermo as the orchestra’s new executive director will be a great asset because “she’s working, constantly, like an executive director should.”

“A chamber orchestra, in the first place, is difficult to start anywhere,” he said. Most people who are classical music lovers like to hear big orchestras.

“And secondly, everything grows on itself. We can probably expect a smaller audience in general than if we were a big orchestra. Therefore we can expect a smaller amount of donations, a smaller amount of recognition throughout the public. It’s just a difficult thing.

“We were getting more and more successful, got to the Barclay (in 1990), had a five-concert season; the orchestra bordered on 40 people. Then when the recession really hit us, we really had to cut back. We’re still at that cutback stage.” The orchestra on Sunday will number 18 players.

“But we have held on for 11 years, which is encouraging too,” Levy said.

* Micah Levy will lead the Orange County Chamber Orchestra in a “Treats and Tricks” program on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. $14 to $29. (714) 854-4646.