Edison Gift Gives New Hall a Push

Edison International is giving $500,000 to the Orange County Performing Arts Center for its expansion campaign and $150,000 to the Pacific Symphony to fund a free summer concert series, company officials announced Thursday.

The $500,000 grant, to be given over five years, is the first major corporate gift to the center’s capital campaign to build a recently announced concert hall to be designed by architect Cesar Pelli and acoustician Russell Johnson. The hall will be used by the Pacific Symphony and other touring orchestras that visit the center.

“When you kick off a $200-million campaign,” said center president Jerry E. Mandel, “you need one of the most important companies in the area to step forward to make that lead gift and tell everybody, ‘This is the thing to do because it’s good for Orange County.’ Edison International has done that and we really appreciate it.”

The firm previously awarded the center a three-year, $150,000 grant to fund an educational outreach program that provides low-cost tickets to center events for community college dance students and their families.

The Pacific Symphony grant, also to be distributed over three years, will support one free summer park concert each year, beginning with a family program with fireworks July 17 at Centennial Park in Santa Ana. The other concerts will be announced.

“The grant is helping us achieve our vision for this orchestra, which is to reach many people beyond the traditional venues,” orchestra executive director John Forsyte said. “We often don’t reach the larger, broader community and this grant will allow us to [start to do that with] a summer series.”

The two new grants, together with others given this year and last, total more than $1 million given by the Rosemead-based corporation as part of its “Arts for the Community” campaign.

Other Orange County arts recipients include:

* St. Joseph Ballet: $150,000, a three-year grant that began in 1998 to help pay for construction of the Santa Ana-based company’s new studios and facilities, scheduled to open this fall.

* Anaheim Ballet: $25,000, a new one-year grant to support its dance program for local schoolchildren.

* Vietnamese Traditional Arts: $15,000, a new one-year grant to the Westminster-based organization to support arts education and several Orange County-based traditional Vietnamese music and dance groups.

* William Hall Master Chorale: $15,000, a new one-year grant to fund the Costa Mesa-based organization’s outreach program titled “Enriching Minds Through Music.”

* Very Special Arts: $10,000, one-year grant given June, 1998, to help the Santa Ana-based art gallery support artistic efforts of children and adults with disabilities.

* Paul McNeff Singers: $10,000, one-year grant given June, 1998, to support the Fullerton-based group’s after-school educational outreach program that reaches more than 12,000 local students.

* Anaheim Arts Council: $10,000, one-year grant given June, 1998, for a mural project at Edison International Field in Anaheim.