Getting Lessons of Note From the Philharmonic

The biggest compliment a bassoonist can get, aspiring musician Hollie Lohff says, is to be asked not to play so loud.

“Everybody starts out playing really soft because they are scared,” explains Lohff, a bubbly junior from Bonita High School in LaVerne who plays bassoon in the Claremont Young Musicians Orchestra. “And I just belt it. My teacher told me the greatest compliment a bassoonist can get is to be told to play softer. I’ve had a few people say that to me. And I’m like ‘Wow! Thank you!’ ”

Lohff took up playing the hefty bassoon in eighth grade after several years playing the much daintier flute in her school band because “no one was going to hear me, and this is my attitude--you have to hear me, I’m there!”

And now she’s got her wish: Lohff, along with 76 other promising young musicians from Los Angeles-area public schools and youth orchestras, will be heard in a big way Saturday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the debut performance of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s High School Honor Orchestra.

The ensemble of young musicians in grades nine through 12 will perform alongside musicians in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with each Honor Orchestra member sitting next to a Philharmonic member who plays his or her instrument.

The program opens with the Philharmonic performing Glinka’s Overture to “Russlan and Ludmilla,” followed by violinist Caroline Campbell (who turned 18 on Wednesday), winner of the 1995 Bronislaw Kaper Award, performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D, Opus 35. (Part of the prize is a chance to perform with the Philharmonic.)

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Then the young musicians will join the Philharmonic to perform Britten’s “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” and Copland’s Four Dance Episodes from “Rodeo.” Conductor Grant Gershon and Campbell will hold a question-and-answer session after the performance.

The concert is this year’s offering of the Music Center’s annual program for young adults, “Night Out at the Music Center,” meant to encourage young audiences to become interested in classical music. To that end, tickets are priced at the going rate for a movie ticket--$7.50. The concert was made possible by a planning grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Honor Orchestra members were selected after February auditions before Philharmonic members at Arcadia High School. Some 40 high schools are represented, including Arcadia, Hamilton, Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, Long Beach Polytechnic, Santa Monica and Van Nuys. Students hailing from private schools auditioned via their membership in community orchestras; school orchestra members were selected from public schools only.

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“We did want to emphasize that this [concert] is in support of music teachers in the public schools right now, who have bucked the odds and have not only existing music programs, but quite good ones,” says Gershon, assistant conductor of the Philharmonic.

“There certainly is still a good pool of talent, but one of the things we are trying to do is provide another outlet, another opportunity for young people to have a vibrant, quality musical experience that I would wager they’ll never forget. They’ve performed onstage, but they’ve never performed onstage at the Dorothy Chandler, sitting next to members of the Phil.”

Gershon says the young musicians have embraced this possibility with enthusiasm rather than trepidation, even with only five chances to rehearse. “Maybe they’re too young to feel fear,” he jokes.

Indeed, after a three-hour rehearsal last Saturday, the Honor Orchestra participants seemed more exhilarated than intimidated. “I was really pretty nervous, but it was really pretty easy,” said first violinist Stephanie Chan, a Claremont High School 11th-grader and opera buff.

Principal bass Andrew Morris of Glendale, an 11th-grader at L.A. County High School for the Arts who auditioned for Philharmonic associate principal cellist Daniel Rothmuller, says the cellist “was pretty nice. I liked his sense of humor, it was pretty . . . teenager-y!”

“I just practiced my heart out, and it paid off,” says second trumpet Ryan Gardner, a Santa Monica High ninth-grader who says he devotes two hours a day to the trumpet. “I was really excited that we were going to be able to [audition] in front of a member of the Philharmonic. Even if I didn’t make it, it would be a great experience . . . and after just three rehearsals, we’re pretty incredible.”

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Damien Schnyder, a senior at Long Beach Polytechnic High School who plays fourth horn, thinks playing alongside a pro will be “a lot of fun. There is a lot to learn, just watching them play.” For Schnyder, playing the horn is “kind of stress relief. When you play, all of your worries are gone. It’s just you and your horn.”

Bassoonist Lohff muses: “All my friends look at me like I’m some kind of a weird person [for pursuing music], but I feel great. I actually feel like I’m becoming an actual musician now. Like I’ve always been thinking, something like this is going to happen to me, and finally it did and, it’s like . . . wow!”

* The Los Angeles Philharmonic High School Honor Orchestra, Caroline Campbell and the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Los Angeles Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. Tickets, $7.50. (213) 850-2000.