Norma Flynn, 61; Publicist for L.A. Philharmonic for 28 Years

Norma Flynn, director of public relations at the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 28 years, died Saturday at her home in North Hollywood of complications from cancer. She was 61.

“She had a wonderful reputation in the business, not only in the city but outside of Los Angeles,” said Deborah Borda, the orchestra’s managing director. “She represented the best. Everybody from New York to Chicago to San Francisco loved her.”

A native New Yorker, Flynn studied voice privately in that city and in Italy before turning to orchestra public relations, learning the ropes as a secretary to composer Jack Gottlieb, then-assistant to Leonard Bernstein, who was music director of the New York Philharmonic.

Flynn came to Los Angeles on a visit in 1973 and decided to stay. Answering a newspaper advertisement for a “girl needed,” she joined the staff of the public relations office at the Philharmonic.

She quickly rose from office assistant to director of public relations--guiding the organization’s media relations and publicity efforts and representing the visions of the four music directors who led the symphony during her long tenure: Zubin Mehta, Carlo Maria Giulini, Andre Previn and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

In the years she represented the Philharmonic, it grew in budget and stature, becoming the model of a progressive 21st century orchestra.

“She was a very essential, very important person in the organization,” Salonen said Saturday. “Norma really cared about the music and the organization.”

Ernest Fleischmann, managing director of the orchestra from 1969 until his retirement in 1998, hired Flynn and then promoted her to chief of public relations.

“In many ways, she was the voice of the Philharmonic,” he said. “She represented the orchestra in a most honorable and knowledgeable and enthusiastic kind of way. She made many friends for the orchestra.”

Her efforts, said Mark Swed, Times music critic, also made her a friend of “everyone who cares about music in this city.”

“An orchestra has two public faces,” said Swed, who first got to know Flynn in 1976 when he was a critic at the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner. “One is the composite of over a hundred musicians who play for us. The other is the one the institution presents.

“And it is not always the case that music and image seem to have the same heart,” Swed said. “When they did at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Norma was often the reason why.”

Flynn is survived by her mother, Louise; her husband, James; her daughter, Colleen; her stepson, Matthew; and her brother, Roman.