San Diego Symphony Making Modest Return

Equal parts Lazarus and Tchaikovsky, the San Diego Symphony is set to resume making music today after 2 1/2 years of artistic silence, bankruptcy, legal wrangling and political maneuvering aimed at reviving the city’s oldest artistic organization.

The orchestra--known in recent decades as a musical winner and a financial flop--returns with a series of pops concerts laden with sure-fire favorites and staged at the picturesque Navy Pier in downtown San Diego. More subtle, nuanced fare will have to wait.

“We’ve got to build an audience,” said Sandra Pay, chairwoman of the orchestra’s board of directors and past chairwoman of the San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture.

The opening weekend bill, “Truly Tchaikovsky,” promises the “1812” Overture with fireworks, cannons, accompaniment by the Navy Band and an encore of “Stars and Stripes Forever.” In coming weeks: Broadway show tunes, movie themes, Gershwin, Beatlemania and mariachi music.

To woo San Diegans back to their orchestra, the new management has several stratagems:

* Eight summer pops programs of 24 concerts.

* A regular season of classics starting Oct. 9 at Copley Symphony Hall.

* Concerts accompanying silent movies.

* Family concerts on Sunday afternoons.

* A Rush Hour series of one-hour midweek concerts for commuters and a series called Lightbulb Concerts, described as a cross between Leonard Bernstein’s famous Young People’s Concerts and the “Prairie Home Companion” shows of Garrison Keillor.

“We have to show the people of San Diego that we are as important as the San Diego Zoo or the Padres,” said the reborn orchestra’s principal conductor and artistic director Jung-Ho Pak, 36, who was associate conductor at the time of the symphony’s demise.

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The orchestra also has to prove that it can be financially responsible. Its new organization is a considerably slimmer version of the old one. If the orchestra management has a motto, it seems to be “Pay as You Go.” The budget is barely half of that $10-million pre-bankruptcy season, and it has committed to only a minimal schedule. One financial mistake the orchestra plans to avoid repeating is the signing of expensive guest artists. “We can’t afford to pay Kathleen Battle $65,000 so she can sing for five minutes,” Pay said.

“This is a very modest, very careful beginning,” said attorney Ted Graham, who represented the musicians pro bono in the effort to reestablish the orchestra. “[But] it has all the right ingredients for a long and successful enterprise.”

After creditors pushed the orchestra into bankruptcy in 1996, San Diego Mayor Susan Golding stepped in and assembled a save-the-symphony task force. Pay was on the committee, and several other task force members are included on the orchestra’s new 11-member board, which includes only one holdover, a retired Superior Court judge.

The orchestra’s trip through bankruptcy court proved as complicated and emotionally draining as a Rachmaninoff marathon. At one critical point, the bankruptcy trustee was on the brink of selling Copley Symphony Hall and the orchestra’s musical library, which symphony lovers insist would have killed the music forever.

In the end, creditors agreed to waive millions of dollars in claims and accept 3 cents on the dollar for millions more. And, most importantly, the musicians agreed to compromises that their union had once deemed anathema.

No musicians will be on the new board of directors, though they did have board representation before. The number of musicians will be reduced from 82 to 78. Players will be paid a base salary of $20,000 for the first season, $25,000 for the second season--compared to $36,000 before the bankruptcy. And salaries will be based on seating position, not seniority, which means demoted musicians will see their salaries cut. If concerts are canceled, so are the musicians’ fees.

“The musicians have had to give up a lot,” said Richard Levine, a cellist with the orchestra since 1973. “The past two years have been very painful for a lot of us. When the symphony crumbled, a lot of the musicians watched their professional identity crumble.”

Many survived by teaching, joining smaller ensembles and taking full- or part-time jobs with other orchestras. An estimated 20 of the musicians left for jobs in Fort Worth, New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago and Pittsburgh.

One concession the musicians achieved under their new agreement is that musicians who left San Diego will have their jobs held open. Replacement musicians will be warned by management that they are only warming the chairs that belong to others, who may take a year or more to return.

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The San Diego Symphony traces its artistic lineage to 1912, but in recent decades, despite good musical notices, the public seemed weary of its continual fund-raising appeals and seemed to regard the orchestra as a charming but feckless brother-in-law, not to be trusted with money.

Along with appointing the task force, Golding also convinced the San Diego City Council to provide $500,000 in hotel-motel taxes to the orchestra during its silent period. The board, in turn, hired Michigan-based consultant Thomas Gerdom, who has 25 years experience running orchestras, in an effort to erase the symphony’s bad-management reputation.

Potential donors were approached, focus groups held, a marketing plan developed. From Gerdom’s efforts has come the patron-friendly plan to start with the pops concerts by the bay. Gerdom remains as interim president and chief executive officer of the orchestra.

“I’m positive we’re going to succeed,” said Pak, who is also director of the USC Symphony. “For one thing we’ve got a fantastic new board made up of business people. They’re interested in classical music, yes, but their main concern is how to keep the symphony financially sound.”

Much of the energy of Gerdom and the board of directors is aimed at finding donors, a tough chore in a town with but one Fortune 500 company, the Qualcomm telecommunications company.

So far, major donors have included La Jolla financier Larry Robinson, Qualcomm owner Irwin Jacobs, Padres majority owner John Moores, Chargers owner Alex Spanos and Cox Communications. Robinson’s pledge of $2 million early in 1997 was instrumental in convincing the bankruptcy judge to shift the case from liquidation to reorganization.

The Barona band of Mission Indians--operators of a casino east of San Diego--contributed $200,000 for the pops festival.

Musicians assembled Wednesday for their first rehearsal. One question for opening night is how well the group will play together after a two-year layoff. A second, perhaps more significant question is whether San Diegans are still interested in the orchestra.

“I think a lot of people have missed us,” Levine said. “At least I hope so.”

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* “Truly Tchaikovsky,” the San Diego Symphony, today-Sunday, 7:30 p.m., Navy Pier, Harbor Drive, San Diego, $10-$40. (619) 220-TIXS.