Will Pacific Symphony Go Full Time?

Now that the future appears to hold a shiny, sonorous new concert hall for the Pacific Symphony to call home, surely the orchestra plans to move in as a full-time professional orchestra, right?

Not so fast.

“That’s one of the major strategic questions we’re going to be asking ourselves--I don’t know yet,” says John Forsyte, the orchestra’s executive director.

The issue gained new relevance last week when Henry Segerstrom, founding chairman of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, confirmed that his family will donate land beside the center for a complementary new $100-million-plus concert hall as part of a major center expansion.

Center officials named the Pacific Symphony as the new hall’s resident orchestra-elect. Although the designation isn’t official yet, and other groups would use the auditorium too, that’s expected to mean more dates for the orchestra to play.

Growth has long been a hope on the horizon for the orchestra, a part-time ensemble that now plays 50 classical, pops and family concerts a year at the center (plus another five at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre). That’s far fewer than the full-time Los Angeles Philharmonic presents.

The Pacific likewise employs its 95 players part time. Essentially freelancers, they are paid per concert or per rehearsal, although they must commit to playing a minimum of 16 concerts a year.

Naturally, full-time status would have advantages. Perhaps nothing enhances ensemble unity like repeated practice and performance.

“A great orchestra needs to play together more than Pacific Symphony does at the moment,” said the orchestra board’s chairwoman, Janice Johnson.

Turning the Pacific Symphony into a full-time professional orchestra, however, would be something of a Catch-22.

Going full time could well cost the orchestra some of its finest musicians, Forsyte said.

“Ten to 12 of our members are very active studio musicians,” Forsyte said. Most of them hold principal positions, including principal clarinet, flute and oboe.

These studio musicians regularly work in Hollywood, which can afford to pay top dollar to get some of the best musicians in the region to play for film and television scores and assorted commercial jobs.

Many of these elite Pacific Symphony musicians like playing for it precisely because it’s not a full-time commitment, and it allows them to play the kind of symphonic music they were trained for but rarely get the chance to do in Hollywood.

Would these men and women want to sign full-time contracts--which couldn’t match the Hollywood pay they command?

Not likely, Forsyte said. That’s why full-time status for the Pacific Symphony may not make sense, at least not immediately upon arrival in the new hall.

For now, he said, “we can consistently put together a great orchestra without having to guarantee wages. That’s one of the great advantages of [being in] Southern California.”

At any rate, the orchestra’s board has embarked on an “intensive strategic planning process” to wrestle with such questions, Forsyte said.

A game plan for expansion should be ready by next fall, and Forsyte hopes within three months to fulfill center officials’ request for a “best estimate” of how many concerts the Pacific would present each year in the new hall.

If nothing else, the group will have to increase its offerings to accommodate its subscribers, who now number about 16,000. Segerstrom Hall, where it now plays, seats about 3,000. The new hall is expected to seat 2,000, max.

But whether growth means more classical concerts, more pops performances or perhaps a new chamber music series are open questions, Forsyte said. So are issues of how rapidly to expand, when to begin and by exactly how much.

“I think you have to plan to take advantage of the synergy of a new hall opening, so naturally our expectation would be to launch growth in lock-step with that. But the extent of that growth will be evaluated.”

One thing for certain is that the Pacific, which operates on about $7 million annually, must fatten up its endowment, now at $3.5 million, to support growth, he said. A new hall wouldn’t be ready for at least five years, “so we’ll take advantage of that time to build our financial resources.”

In the next three months, orchestra and center officials will be jointly developing coordinated fund-raising plans, Forsyte said. Since both expect to be courting the same potential donors, the coordinated approach would stress the idea that a new hall won’t succeed without financially sound organizations to fill it.

He is confident that money can be found to support all of the above.

“There are tremendous financial resources in this county, and tremendous vision for the county to become a destination for the arts.”

Meanwhile, orchestra officials have provided the center with their wish list for the new hall. It includes administrative offices--the orchestra now is based in Santa Ana--special lighting for pops concerts and a hydraulic lift to handle pianos.

But neither Forsyte nor anyone on his staff or board has spoken with the hall’s recently appointed architect, Cesar Pelli, and don’t expect to.

“Our role is to work through center administration,” he said. “They are the liaison with the architect. . . . We’re the tenant. They build the building.”