Slatkin to Visit L.A. in St. Louis ‘Farewell Tour’

Moving on after a 27-year association with the Saint Louis Symphony, Music Director Leonard Slatkin acknowledges that he has mixed feelings about leaving the orchestra, but is “very excited” about the prospects in his new job--leading the National Symphony in Washington.

On Slatkin’s “Farewell Tour,” the 51-year-old American conductor brings the St. Louis ensemble to Arizona and California this month. The Southern California segment of the eight-concert trip includes performances in Palm Desert on Tuesday, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Wednesday night, the Orange County Performing Arts Center Thursday, and next Sunday night at the San Diego Civic Theatre.

Slatkin has a reputation for unstintingly championing living American composers, and he has promised to uphold that reputation in the nation’s capital. A piece from one such composer--the University of Indiana’s Claude Baker, fifth composer-in-residence with the Saint Louis Symphony--will be on the program next week, along with works by Haydn, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff.

In Washington this fall, Slatkin will succeed Mstislav Rostropovich, becoming only the fifth conductor in the National Symphony’s seven decades. He’s keeping his same old summer job, though, conducting the Cleveland Orchestra’s outdoor season at the Blossom Music Festival, outside Cleveland.

The Los Angeles-born Slatkin says he’s convinced that moving all the way East is right for him: “Before deciding to leave St. Louis, I was getting to the place where I was thinking, ‘How much more can I do here?’ If I had stayed, I would have eventually suffered from too much status quo.”

MORE FAREWELLS: Lara Webber, music director of Los Angeles’ Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra, is also moving on. Her tenure in the three-year residency has been “far, far more rewarding than I expected,” says the 27-year-old Webber, who won the job out of field of 35 in 1993.

Webber is the 13th conductor in the orchestra’s four-decade history; part of a program designed to give entry level, postgraduate conductors practical experience. “There is no other such opportunity in this country,” Webber says.

What did she learn in her three years? Everything, apparently: “How to be a music director. All the big and little things one has to do. Plus, how to function in the community.”

Where does she go from here? “I don’t know for sure,” she says. “I’m auditioning all over the country.

In the meantime, there will be two more Webber-led Debut Orchestra concerts, both at Occidental College’s Thorne Hall, on April 14 and May 5.

And the process of choosing Webber’s successor is also underway. According to YMF Programs Manager Mike Duckworth, a committee--conductors JoAnn Falletta, Gustav Meier, Lucinda Carver, Carl St.Clair, Richard Kaufman, Jung-Ho Pak and L.A. Philharmonic oboist David Weiss--is evaluating 41 candidates to choose four or five finalists. The new YMF conductor will be chosen in auditions and interviews at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion May 11.

BRIEFLY: The trio of violinist Jaime Laredo, cellist Sharon Robinson and pianist Joseph Kalichstein opens a new concert series at the L.A. County Museum of Art Wednesday night at 8. Arthur Gilbert has founded the Rosalinde Gilbert series to honor his late wife; next season, the series will present “six or seven” concerts, according to LACMA Music Director Dorrance Stalvey, replacing the Bing Concerts. . . . “The Song of Martina,” an operatic pastiche based on the life of tennis star Martina Navratilova that uses excerpts from “Rigoletto,” “Carmen,” “Barbiere di Siviglia,” “Il Trovatore,” “Aida” and others, opens this week at Theatre Geo in Hollywood. Playwright Jeff Baron wrote the English words over the familiar tunes; he also directs. . . . Pianist Irma Vallecillo, once a member of the Southern California musical community, has been named artistic director of the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival in Kalamazoo, Mich.