Symphony Launched on Upbeat Note

Local musicians have formed an orchestra for western Ventura County to fill a void they say was left by the unharmonious merger last year of the former Conejo and Ventura County symphonies.

The Channel Islands Symphony Orchestra will hold its debut concert July 4 at Ojai’s Libbey Bowl, and organizers are planning a three-concert series at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center for the 1996-97 season.

Former Alabama Symphony Conductor Paul Polivnick will serve as music director and conductor of the new symphony, which will be made up largely of former Ventura County Symphony players, many of whom were displaced by last year’s merger.

“There was a need created in west Ventura County for musicians who lived and played in this area and had been involved in the music scene for a number of years,” said Ojai teacher Craig Walker, one of the group’s organizers.

“It is not really in competition with anybody,” Walker said. “We just feel there is a need for another one that will be based in this area.”

A year ago, the Conejo and Ventura County symphonies merged to become the New West Symphony. The two groups supported about 150 players, but only 40 of those musicians were picked up by New West.

“The people who lost out in the whole catastrophe want an orchestra to play in,” said Jeff Bandy, a bass player with New West Symphony who plans to join the new Channel Islands Symphony Orchestra as well.

“You do the math,” he said. “Most of those people were nonprofessional people who played music because they loved it. Those are the people that need a place to play and deserve a place to play.”

Steve Thiroux, a bassoonist with the Ventura County Symphony for 17 years, said he hopes that the new orchestra will bring back a community spirit lost when his group folded. Moreover, he said the Channel Islands symphony plans to launch outreach programs in local schools and resurrect the Fourth of July concerts at Libbey Bowl.

“It was more than just playing music all those years,” Thiroux said. “We want to bring back the kind of music and concerts the Ventura County Symphony used to bring.”

New West Executive Director Susan Feller said creation of another orchestra will have little impact on New West, which kicked off its inaugural season a few months ago.

“We wish them well,” she said.

The new orchestra plans to pull its members from the roster of the old Ventura County Symphony, but may also hold auditions if more players are needed. The loose-knit group of musicians spearheading the effort plans to meet with Polivnick next week to plot a course for the group’s future.

Local musicians approached Polivnick late last year while he was conducting performances of “The Nutcracker” with the Channel Islands Ballet Company in Oxnard.

A graduate of the Julliard School of Music and a former violist for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Polivnick conducted the Ventura County Symphony in 1975 and has played in the Ojai Music Festival. Most recently, he served a one-year stint as guest conductor of the UC Santa Barbara Symphony.

“It will be important to establish a unique identity for the group,” the 48-year-old conductor said. “I think it is a little premature to say what the future holds. It is a question of getting to learn more about the area and what its needs are.”

With only about $5,000 in the bank, one of the new orchestra’s biggest needs is cash, Thiroux said. The group hopes to raise $175,000 before it kicks off the 1996-97 concert season. But right now, organizers are concentrating on the July 4 concert.

If they can raise enough money to keep ticket sales to a low $10 to $15, Walker said, they hope that they can draw a large enough audience to give the fledgling orchestra the exposure it needs to get off the ground.

But at a time when orchestras are folding--not forming--some musicians fear that the Channel Islands Symphony Orchestra’s fund-raising efforts could hit a sour note.

“The climate for orchestras right now is so lousy,” Bandy said. “Orchestras are scaling back and closing all over the place.”

And in budget-tightening times, costs are rising while people and companies are less willing to sponsor such groups, said Dan Geeting, music director at Cal Lutheran University and a New West Symphony member.

“Players cost a lot of money, music costs a lot of money, concert halls cost a lot of money,” he said.

All of those factors raise questions about whether a fledgling orchestra can survive.

“I suppose anybody is free to try their luck,” Geeting said. “It is certainly not an easy thing to do.”

But organizers of the group are optimistic. And music lovers are looking forward to the group’s inaugural concert, which will feature a series of overtures celebrating an appropriate theme: beginnings.

Ginger Wilson, president of the Ojai chapter of the New West Ventura Symphony League, said she is looking forward to the July concert and the emergence of the new orchestra.

“The more musical groups for the county, the better,” she said.