ENTERTAINMENT NEWS : Music Is in the Air : Coming classical events include Supervisor Ed Edelman playing cello, and performances by a chamber group and CSUN guitarists.

San Fernando Valley connoisseurs of classical fare will have a rare, full plate of concerts and events to choose from in the next week or so.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman will lend his musical talents to the 16th annual spring concert of the Topanga Philharmonic Orchestra on April 30 at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga.

Edelman, who has announced that he will not seek reelection, will play the cello with the orchestra.

Is this the beginning of a new career for the soon-to-be-former supervisor?

“If it’s a new career, I’m not going to do too well,” Edelman said.

Edelman has played cello since 1977, primarily for personal satisfaction, although he did once perform with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. He joked that he had declined many past offers to perform publicly because he thought that his playing would adversely affect his reelection chances. But not this time.

Also, he said: “I’m getting the music in advance, so I’ll have a little head start.”

Edelman will be honored at the event for his support of canyon residents in their lengthy negotiations with the Disney family trust over the Canyon Oaks development.

Music Director Guido Lamell has compiled an eclectic program, including Borodin’s “Polovtsian Dances,” Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” and Respighi’s “Pines of Rome,” plus works by Moncayo and Vivaldi. The concert will start at 2 p.m. Tickets are $12.50 advance, $15 at the door, $5 for children 6 and older and senior citizens, and free for children under 6. Proceeds will benefit the Topanga Co-Op School. Call (818) 340-1675.

Musical Ambassadors: The Croatian chamber music ensemble, I Solisti Di Zagreb, will perform works by Mozart, Vivaldi, Handel and Bach at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Lancaster Performing Arts Center, 44933 N. Fern Ave. The ensemble, founded in 1953, has performed at major music festivals around the world. This is its 18th North American tour. Tickets are $17 and $15. Call (818) 723-5950.

American Boychoir: The Angeles Chorale will present the American Boychoir of Princeton, N. J., in concert at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Northridge United Methodist Church, 9650 Reseda Blvd. The 30-voice choir, formerly the Columbus Boychoir, has sung with major orchestras and at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and Boston’s Symphony Hall. The choir, whose members range in age from 11 to 14, has toured in 22 countries.

The ensemble will perform a program of choral pieces composed for boys’ voices. The 50-voice Angeles Chorale Children’s Chorus, made up boys and girls from the San Fernando Valley and other areas of Los Angeles, will perform with the boys’ choir on two pieces: Audrey Snyder’s “Skylark and Nightingale” and John Rutter’s “For the Beauty of the Earth.” Tickets are $6. (The Angeles Chorale itself will not perform.) Call (818) 885-3365.

Valley Classics: The Valley College Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, directed by George Attarian and Robert Chauls, respectively, will perform at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Congregational Church of the Chimes, 14115 Magnolia Blvd., Sherman Oaks.

Included in the concert will be Beethoven’s “Mass in C Major” and “Coriolanus Overture, Opus 62.” Two 20th-Century works featuring a soprano soloist and strings will also be performed: Timothy Blickhan’s “Five Songs for Soprano and String Orchestra” and “Insomnia,” composed by Chauls. The featured soprano will be Valley resident Tricia Grey. Tickets are $5. Call (818) 781-1200, Ext. 347.

Also, Cal State Northridge’s Solo Guitar Students Recital will begin at 8 p.m. Thursday at Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society, 9550 Haskell Ave., North Hills. Admission is free. Call (818) 885-3500. And the New Directions Composers Group will perform works by CSUN student composers at 8 p.m. April 30 in Music Room 3400 of Pierce College, 6201 Winnetka Ave., Woodland Hills. Admission is $6.50, $3.50 students and senior citizens. Call (818) 885-2488.

Best of the Bard: “The Many Faces of Shakespeare” is different from most productions of the poet’s work in that the actors in this show are Valley schoolchildren. More than 30 students, ranging in age from 6 to 14, from Woodland Hills School, Hale Junior High and El Camino High, all in Woodland Hills, have sacrificed their MTV time and social lives to rehearse the 18 selected scenes that make up this production. This independent extracurricular activity won the mayor’s 1992 Golden Apple Award for educational programs and received a grant from the Arts Recovery Fund in 1993 in coordination with Rebuild Los Angeles.

Included are scenes from “Henry V,” “Julius Caesar,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Hamlet,” “Twelfth Night” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Hale teacher Dwight Protho, a CSUN graduate, has directed more than 30 of these shows during the past 12 years. He started the program while teaching at Mayall Junior High in Sepulveda in 1981.

“Initially, I was appalled at the lack of opportunity for children to participate in the performing arts and to experience Shakespeare,” Protho said. “In Europe, the cultural fabric is more woven into the educational system.”

Protho says his motivation comes from “the satisfaction of exposing thousands of children to Shakespeare and making them fans of Shakespeare, instead of despising it.”

“The Many Faces of Shakespeare” will be performed at 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays at Woodland Hills School, 22201 San Miguel St., through April 30. Admission is free. Call (818) 908-1655.