Orchestrating a Merger : Music: The New West Symphony will be formed from Conejo and Ventura County ensembles. Concerts for ‘95-96 tentatively set.

After years of informal talks, weeks of speculation and a flurry of board meetings in the past few days, Ventura County’s two competing symphonies are merging.

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The Conejo Symphony and the Ventura County Symphony will become the New West Symphony next year, officials announced Thursday at a gathering at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza.

Officials have tentatively scheduled 12 concerts during the 1995-96 season--six at the Civic Arts Plaza and six identical performances at the Oxnard Civic Auditorium.

The new symphony will boast an annual budget of slightly more than $1 million.

New West will take its music director, Boris Brott, from the Ventura County Symphony and its general manager, Everett Ascher, from the Conejo Symphony. An executive director has not been named.

“The merger talk had always been out there,” said Karine Beesley, who was fired as Ventura County Symphony executive director in October.

But the reluctance of two longtime conductors always stood in the way, she said.

That problem was solved when 30-year Conejo Symphony Conductor Elmer Ramsey announced his retirement earlier this month. His counterpart, Frank Salazar, had retired from the Ventura County Symphony in 1992 and Salazar’s replacement, Brott, was open to a merger.

“Then we started to eye the east county hungrily,” Beesley said.

The merger gives the combined symphony a bigger budget and full access to the Civic Arts Plaza, considered the best venue in the county, officials said. But for musicians and employees, it could mean cutbacks.

The fate of Beesley’s replacement, Patricia Hesselbach, and other staff members has not been determined. Hesselbach was hired in December. She could not be reached for comment.

The new symphony will also need between 45 and 80 musicians for each performance, officials said. This means that at least 30 and as many as 80 musicians from the two orchestras will be permanently dropped.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” said Michael Smith, head of Ventura County’s musicians union. “We were blindsided by this.”

He said union officials were notified Thursday afternoon, while other government officials and other community leaders were told earlier this week.

Two county supervisors, council members from three cities, representatives from the area’s state legislators and heads of various arts board and commissions were on hand to laud the merged symphony during the 4 p.m. press conference.

“It overcame a huge obstacle, that’s the Conejo Grade that we think separates east and west county,” said County Supervisor Frank Schillo, who represents Thousand Oaks.

The merger was announced jointly by Ventura County Symphony Board President Felice Ginsberg and Conejo Symphony Board Vice President Cate Brown. Brown has been named president of the new board of directors.

Board members of the two symphonies have been quietly meeting off and on for the past year discussing the merger. Beesley said she drafted a merger proposal in late 1993 that was circulated to members of both boards.

“The whole thing kind of fell apart when we got into the union hassle,” she said. Ventura County Symphony musicians came close to striking before agreeing to a tentative contract in October.

Merger talks began in earnest in early March when Ramsey announced his retirement from the Conejo Symphony.

Ginsberg said the two men’s retirements, along with the recent opening of the Civic Arts Plaza, played significant roles in the merger, which was approved by the Conejo board Tuesday and the Ventura County board last week.

As recently as March 6, Brown and other officials were denying that a merger was taking place.

“That was true then,” Ascher said.

And even with Thursday’s announcement, many details still have to be worked out. For instance, union officials want to know where they stand.

The 65 union members and the Ventura County Symphony agreed to a tentative labor agreement in October after a long summer of acrimonious negotiations. That agreement expires in June and the two sides had been bargaining for a long-term contract.

Ginsberg said the new symphony does not have an agreement with the union. But she said most orchestras the size of New West are unionized.

“We will be recognizing the union,” she said.

But Smith, the union leader, said he will need to consult with the union’s lawyers before deciding what to do next.