A Note of Confusion

By ROBIN RAUZI

Nov. 21, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Valley may not have its own art museum or ballet company or opera. But what it lacks in those cultural respects, it’s making up for in orchestras.

Three orchestras are--more or less--calling themselves the Valley Symphony these days.

OK, if you want to get specific, the actual names are San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra, Valley Symphony Orchestra and New Valley Symphony Orchestra. But how often do you hear the L.A. Phil called by its full name?

The dispute heated up this fall when the Los Angeles Solo Repertory Orchestra--known as such since 1968--re-christened itself the New Valley Symphony Orchestra. The change might have gone undetected, except that one of the people on its mailing list was Robert Chauls.

Chauls, who is music director for the Valley Symphony Orchestra that plays at Valley College, got a letter in August requesting a donation.

Chauls sent back a letter--drafted by the lawyer for Valley College--asking the group to change its moniker.

The New Valley Symphony has refused. Orchestra manager Robert Rouse said they even checked with the California Secretary of State to make sure their name was not being used by another group. “Their complaint is confusion primarily,” said Rouse. “From a legal standpoint, we’re quite clear. . . . We might be accused of bad taste, perhaps.”

Into this fray strode James Domine. His orchestra performed as the West Valley Symphony, but actually incorporated under the name the San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra in 1992. About that time Domine sent a letter to Chauls and the Valley Symphony Orchestra telling them to drop the name.

They didn’t. And with this New Valley Symphony also muddying the waters, Domine said, he felt he had to reassert his group’s rightful place as the Valley Symphony. So his group started using the name the San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra when its season started in September.

None of the groups is pursuing legal action. But Chauls, for one, is still worried about potential mix-ups. “I don’t know that it creates any major problem, but here we have three orchestras in the Valley all basically calling themselves the same thing. It’s just kind of silly.”

Perhaps the silliest aspect is that the groups are squabbling over a name with a spotty history. The original San Fernando Valley Symphony was founded about 50 years ago. At its peak in the 1960s, its board of directors wanted to make it fully professional and hired Elmer Bernstein to be conductor.

He didn’t stay, however, and the group bounced between conductors and venues, and faded from sight for extended periods. It enjoyed a resurgence under conductor Lois Johnson in the late 1980s, but then went dormant until Domine picked up the name in 1992.

The other groups picked the name less deliberately. The Valley Symphony Orchestra was the Valley College Orchestra until 1992, when Chauls took over as music director. With fewer music students enrolling, Chauls opened up the group as a community orchestra and dropped “college” from the name, though musicians who are enrolled at Valley College get class credit.

James Swift, music director of the New Valley Symphony, conducted the original San Fernando Valley Symphony for a few years in the 1960s--until the board replaced him with Bernstein for their run at professional status.

Swift took his amateur musicians and founded the Los Angeles Solo Repertory Orchestra. Recently, though, orchestra supporters grumbled that the name was unwieldy and confusing, so the board passed out a questionnaire at a concert last spring. Most of its patrons are from the Valley, said orchestra manager Rouse, and almost all the choices for a new name contained the word Valley.

The New Valley group performs four times a year at Liberty Hall in Forest Lawn Cemetery--drawing an attendance of about 500 for its free concerts.

The San Fernando Valley Symphony fills the 400-seat theater at Pierce College, where it performs five subscription and two holiday concerts a year. Average attendance for the Valley Symphony is about 200, two-thirds of the capacity of the Little Theater on the Valley College campus.

There’s no malice evident between the leaders of the different orchestras. “Everybody’s just trying to make music and do their own thing, and I understand that,” said Chauls. “I don’t really feel any competitiveness.”

But he isn’t changing his orchestra’s name. And neither are the other conductors.

The question is why any orchestra--let alone three--would lay claim to the Valley. Rouse attributes some of the geographic pride to the Valley secession effort led by former state Assemblywoman Paula Boland. Valley residents’ ties to the rest of Los Angeles are diminishing, he said.

Domine agreed, and said that the orchestras’ names might be a signal that the Valley is coming into its own. Eventually, he added, perhaps the region will establish cultural institutions separate from those in downtown Los Angeles.

“There’s an ambition there,” said Domine. “People would like to emerge as a regional orchestra. One reason I resisted using that name was because I don’t think the funding is there for a regional orchestra yet.” He said it would take about $100,000 a year, and probably a concert hall larger than any currently available in the Valley.

But could any one group corral the support from all the corners of the Valley? Or would the Valley’s factionalism stand in the way? In Ventura County, the New West Symphony faced boycotts from staunch supporters of the old Conejo and Ventura County symphonies, which were dissolved in order to form the New West.

“There’s the Warner Center thing, there’s the central Valley-Van Nuys concept, and then the Northridge idea,” said Domine. “It’s like trees whose branches haven’t entwined.”

Previously successful regional groups, such as the Glendale Symphony or the Pasadena Civic, have been rooted in cities a fraction of the size of the Valley.

But, Domine added, “He who gets to the trough first feeds best.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Musical Scorecard

Valley Symphony Orchestra

* WHERE: Little Theater, Los Angeles Valley College, 5800 Fulton Ave., Van Nuys.

* WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday.

* HOW MUCH: $10 general, $7 seniors and students.

* CALL: (818) 781-1200, Ext. 350.

New Valley Symphony Orchestra

* WHERE: The Hall of Liberty, 6300 Forest Lawn Drive, Los Angeles.

* WHEN: 2 p.m. Dec. 15.

* HOW MUCH: Free.