Guitarist Nels Cline Tunes In to a Different Sound of Music : The organizer of a successful club date series for innovative and experimental musicians will perform in Ventura.

For the past two years, new music aficionados of many different stripes have been known to flock to the Alligator Lounge in Santa Monica. In a region not known for embracing the cultural fringe, the lounge has become a home for the homeless, a haven for experimental, category-defying musicians who graze the idioms of left-field jazz, progressive rock and free improvisation but belong nowhere in particular.

There’s nothing quite like the sense of sweet vindication in proving cynics wrong. Just ask guitarist Nels Cline, who launched the New Music Monday series when he booked his trio there, and now organizes the schedule. Six bucks will buy you an earful of music by three separate acts--usually topped off by Cline’s own incendiary para-fusion trio.

Venturans have heard Cline as a sideman in their own City Hall twice now, with Bonnie Barnett’s band last fall and with Vinnie Golia’s Quintet last month. This Saturday night, Cline arrives as one-half of a duo with Woody Aplanalp. Also on the bill is the trio Mahacuisinart, with special guest Lynn Johnston, a reedman with Cruel Frederick and others.

Last week, the tall, ever-alert and traditionally T-shirted Cline took the stage with special bravado. He told the crowd, in as much a validation of its role as his own, “This series, small as it is, is known internationally. There were those naysayers who said this couldn’t happen in Los Angeles.” He paused for effect. “Boy, were they wrong. It’s small, but it’s strong.”

Likewise, the Nels Cline Trio, a uniquely versatile and wonderfully volatile unit that defines the distance between anarchy and lyricism. Cline is wont to leap from frenetic sonic assaults to skittering mod-bop riffs and rockish guitar raunch. In terms of guitarist paradigms, Cline’s playing recalls everyone from Gabor Szabo to Thurston Moore to John Abercrombie to Alvin Lee to John McLaughlin, finally looping back around to . . . Nels Cline.

This was no average Monday night here. Apart from the second anniversary, Cline and band mates bassist Bob Mair and drummer Michael Pruessner were celebrating the long-awaited release of their new CD, “Ground” (Krown Pocket).

When Cline hits Ventura City Hall, he will no doubt bring along his well-practiced attitude of exploration, as well as objects--he does wonders with an egg beater on the strings, for instance--with which to manipulate, activate and otherwise redefine what we know about the guitar.

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FURTHER ADVENTURES IN SYMPHONY LAND: By season’s end, the Ventura County Symphony will die a benevolent death.

In case your mind was elsewhere and hadn’t heard the news, as of next season, the Ventura County Symphony is merging with the Conejo Symphony into the newly dubbed New West Symphony, to the exhilaration of some, the consternation of others and the mixed emotions of many more.

Therefore, this weekend’s two performances of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Oxnard Civic Auditorium on Saturday and at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza on Sunday will represent a swan song for the Ventura County Symphony, in its current incarnation.

Mendelssohn’s classic will feature, as narrator, stage and screen actress Claire Bloom. (Bloom will also be in the area, in the Ojai Festival, reading poetry on the Sunday-morning concert, June 11.)

Speaking of concert seasons creeping to a halt, Wednesday night marks the third and final program in this spring’s “Musics Alive!” series. It’s a dress-down affair, in which discussions from all sides of the stage are encouraged. Put on in Ventura by the Ventura County Symphony and the Ojai Festival, the chamber music series focuses on ethnic musical traditions mixed with contemporary music and has included Japanese and Hebraic music.

Korea is the cultural point of departure for next week’s concert, entitled “Strings Alive!,” with the principle performers being the Korean Classical Music and Dance Company and the fine Santa Barbara-based Anacapa String Quartet. Composer Byong Kim will be on hand to discuss his work “sori” for solo harp, played by Marcia Dickstein.

Now completing its second season, the provocative and often ear-stretching “Musics Alive!” series has been well-attended. With luck and continued patronage, the series will carry on into the clean-slated history of the New West Symphony.

Details

* WHO: Nels Cline and Woody Aplanalp.

* WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday.

* WHERE: Ventura City Hall, California and Poli streets.

* HOW MUCH: $5.

* CALL: 654-4082.

* WHAT: Ventura County Symphony with Claire Bloom as narrator, performing “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

* WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday at the Oxnard Civic Auditorium and 2 p.m Sunday at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza.

* HOW MUCH: Oxnard: $30, $24, $18, $12; Thousand Oaks: $40, $30, $20, $10.

* CALL: Oxnard: 486-2424; Thousand Oaks: 643-8646.

* WHAT: “Strings Alive!” music of Korea.

* WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.

* WHERE: Poinsettia Pavilion, 3451 Foothill Road, Ventura.

* HOW MUCH: $20.

* CALL: 643-8646.