New West Symphony Hits a Sour Note for Many Music Lovers : Ventura County: Some are boycotting in protest of its bitter merger of two orchestras. Officials blame light crowds on lack of time for promotion.

Two performances into its inaugural season, the newly formed New West Symphony has won praise as an orchestra bursting with potential.

But notwithstanding promising reviews, the performances have failed to attract the audiences the Ventura County and Conejo symphonies--dissolved last spring to form a new, first-rate orchestra--once drew.

Some music lovers say they are boycotting New West Symphony to protest the bitter merger of the county’s homespun community orchestras, which followed months of discord and accusations of unfair labor practices.

But New West officials blame the modest attendance on a last-minute deal between management and the musicians’ union, which left them with little time to promote the new symphony.

In their last seasons, both the Conejo and Ventura symphonies played to packed houses for nearly every show. Three Conejo Symphony performances sold out completely. Overall, the orchestra had a 97% attendance rate for its seven-concert season, said Elmer Ramsey, the former conductor.

“We had full houses all last season,” he said. “It is unfortunate it didn’t stay that way.”

Despite claims by New West officials that merging the symphonies would lead to a larger, consolidated audience, the orchestra so far has played to partially filled houses in Thousand Oaks and Oxnard.

According to New West Executive Director Susan Feller, the audience for New West’s October debut filled about 72% of the house at the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks and 80% of the concert hall at the Oxnard Civic Auditorium.

Attendance at the symphony’s second Oxnard performance remained the same while increasing slightly in Thousand Oaks, she said.

But some musicians say those estimates seem overly optimistic.

“When I looked out there, I saw a lot of empty seats,” said Jeff Bandy, a former Ventura County Symphony bass player who performed in the symphony’s first concert. “I estimated 60% of houses at both of the inaugural concerts, and that is poor attendance compared to before.”

Veteran concert-goers in Ventura County attribute the low turnout to the well-publicized rancor between management and the musicians. Players from both symphonies bitterly opposed the merger and then waged a months-long battle over who should play in the new orchestra.

Some residents say the treatment of the musicians, many of whom weren’t invited to join the new orchestra, has turned them off of New West.

The backlash has been particularly strong among music lovers in the Conejo Valley, where some loyal fans of the former community orchestra have vowed never to attend a single New West Symphony performance.

Thornton Garrett, a season ticket-holder of the former Conejo Symphony for 30 years, is one such fan.

“I am totally boycotting New West,” he said. “I haven’t gone to any of them yet.”

Neither has his wife, Shirley. “I know a lot of people who have no intention of going,” she said. “We are community people and we want something that belongs to our community.”

To the Garretts and a stubborn group of die-hard Conejo Symphony fans who helped raise funds for a local concert hall for the 34-year-old symphony, the ill will created by its dissolution is too much to overcome.

Instead, some are throwing their support behind Cal Lutheran University’s student orchestra, which this season absorbed about 20 players from the defunct Conejo Symphony.

Robert Wiles, a retired music teacher who replaced his pass to Los Angeles Philharmonic several years ago with tickets for the Conejo Symphony, said he is satisfying his taste for orchestral music by attending occasional performances in Simi Valley and Los Angeles, but that he won’t be caught attending a New West Symphony performance.

“I don’t live in New West City or in New West County, so I can’t really feel like this symphony was mine the way I felt the Conejo was,” he said. “And the only way I can protest [that] is with my dollars.”

Concert aficionados in the west county, where the Ventura County Symphony reigned for 33 years, have typically been less harsh on the new symphony.

Ginger Wilson, president of the Ojai chapter of the New West Ventura Symphony League, said she thinks most concert-goers in the west county are willing to give the new symphony a chance--although in remembrance of the original symphony, they have refused to drop the name Ventura from the title of their group.

“I think there are enough music lovers out there that they are willing to support music in the county even under a new name,” she said.

Though bothered by the absence of some of the county’s most dedicated symphony supporters, New West officials are upbeat about their attendance rates and confident they can recapture the lost audience with top-notch performers.

“We feel attendance has been very good so far,” said Susan Feller, New West’s executive director. “It is a building process and we know it isn’t going to happen overnight. But we feel quality will win out. I expect . . . that by the end of the season the houses will be pretty much full.”

Lawrence Blonquist, president of New West’s board of directors, attributes low attendance to a late start in advertising the upcoming season. After signing an agreement with the American Federation of Musicians on Sept. 14, New West had about three weeks to prepare for its Oct. 6 concert.

Under the deal, New West would offer 40 seats, without audition, to members of the two former symphonies. Musicians not chosen for this group would then be given priority in blind auditions before the remaining 25 stand-by seats were opened to all musicians.

“Up until Sept. 14, nobody knew whether we were going to have a concert or not,” Blonquist said. “And we have an audience that ordinarily spends its discretionary art dollar in advance, so many of them had already made plans.”

Though some of New West’s ticket prices are slightly higher than those for the Ventura and Conejo concerts, Blonquist said such small hikes typically are not high enough to scare away concert-goers.

In Oxnard, single tickets cost $1 to $3 more than the Ventura County Symphony tickets did, while season ticket prices have remained the same. In Thousand Oaks, more classes of tickets have been added, making some founders and balcony seats as much as $5 more expensive when sold singly, but cutting the cost of some orchestra and mezzanine tickets.

Some season tickets for New West’s six-concert season are more expensive, by as much as $30, than those offered for the Conejo Symphony’s final seven-concert season. But others, such as some orchestra seats, have dropped by about $20.

Feller attributes New West’s attendance slump to another factor. Many people who attended Conejo Symphony’s performance last year were attracted by its new venue at the recently opened Civic Arts Plaza. The concert hall has since lost its novelty appeal, she said.

Nonetheless, in a September telephone blitz to notify season ticket-holders of the symphony’s October debut, a number of Conejo music lovers cited continuing rancor between musicians and management as their reason for not renewing their season tickets, Blonquist said.

When the symphony opened in October to the tunes of Strauss, none of its performers had been offered the long-term contracts they were promised and none of those most active in the union had been asked to join the new symphony, leading to claims of “blatant blacklisting.”

Since then, full season contracts have been mailed to 40 former members of the Ventura County and Conejo symphonies, blind auditions for the remaining players have been held, and two union representatives have been asked to join the symphony.

The final round of open auditions is scheduled for Jan. 24.

But some musicians--a few of whom have been asked to play for only one concert this season--say they are still dissatisfied with their contracts. And collective bargaining, scheduled to start on Dec. 1, was delayed until late January to allow New West officials to continue auditions.

But Mort Klanpfer, a former Conejo Symphony union representative chosen by the union to start the process of electing a new collective bargaining committee, said he has met some resistance from musicians reluctant to join for fear of retaliation from management.

Though New West officials say they are trying to mend their relationship with the musicians, it is this type of persistent ill feeling that has kept Ventura County’s most die-hard fans away from the new symphony, musicians say.

“Everyone is still incredibly angry about the way this has gone down,” Bandy said. “I don’t think they have [any] idea of the amount of rancor and bad will there is in the community for them.”