LACMA ends residency of two new-music groups

Signaling a decision to sharply curtail its sponsorship of classical music, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced Thursday that it had handed walking papers to two of the city’s most important new-music groups.

Although it will no longer regularly present the California EAR Unit and Xtet -- as well the annual Rosalinde Gilbert Concerts, which cover a broader repertory -- the museum said it would continue to sponsor the prestigious Monday Evening Concerts series, but only for one more year.

The free Friday Night Jazz programs and Sunday Live concerts were spared.

“After careful consideration, we came to the conclusion that the distinction of LACMA’s classical music program’s focus on newer music is less of a necessity than it was a decade ago, given the strength of contemporary programming at a number of venues in L.A.,” LACMA Deputy Director Bruce Robertson said in a statement.

“This fact is reflected in audiences which are ebbing rather than growing at LACMA.... We’re going to concentrate on programs that enhance the core mission of an art museum, which is to present the visual arts to the public.”

Museum officials were said to be in all-day budget meetings and unavailable to comment further.

The list of composers showcased by the Monday Evening series has included Bela Bartok, Alban Berg, Pierre Boulez, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky and Anton Webern.

“This is a big blow to the development of a vibrant contemporary music scene in Los Angeles,” former Los Angeles Philharmonic General Manager Ernest Fleischmann said Thursday. “It just sets us back terribly, and it is really unfortunate that a sister arts organization should take it upon itself to make such a negative statement about music.”

LACMA’s department of music programs, a six-time winner of the ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming, has been run since 1971 by musician and composer Dorrance Stalvey.

Stalvey was also unavailable for comment Thursday.

LACMA has presented concerts in its Leo S. Bing Theater since 1965, when the Monday Evening Concerts, which began as Evenings on the Roof in 1939 at a private home in Silver Lake, relocated to the museum. The Rosalinde Gilbert Concerts began in 1996.

An Ensemble Residency Concert series was initiated in 1987 with the California EAR Unit, which had previously appeared as part of the Monday Evening series.

Xtet, which also had played Mondays, became a resident ensemble in 2002.

Stalvey earlier estimated that the budget for the music programs recently had been about $250,000 a year. LACMA’s annual budget is about $40 million.

Representatives of the new-music groups said they were apprised of the museum’s decision last month, and CalArts President Steven Levine, School of Music Dean David Rosenboom and REDCAT Director Mark Murphy had already come to the rescue of the EAR Unit by committing to concerts at the art institution’s Santa Clarita campus and at REDCAT, its downtown theater.

“We’re trying to sort out all the details how this can work,” Murphy said Wednesday. “This will be a great home for them. They were featured on our first season in a Mel Powell concert. The space and their work made a terrific match.”

As of Thursday, however, the future of Xtet remained uncertain.

“We’re being presented by the South Bay Chamber Music Society next season,” Executive Director Donald Crockett said. “But our main venue has been the Monday Evening Concerts and the Ensemble Residency Concerts.

“We would have to find another space, hire the space. We don’t have any plans to do that at the moment.”

Both groups will play a single concert during the final Monday Evening Concerts series. Xtet will perform Jan. 9, 2006. The EAR Unit will appear March 27.

“When you consider that Dorrance has been presenting high-level groups from around the country, Europe and Canada, which adds a major additional component to the new-music offerings in Los Angeles, I don’t understand why the museum would want to cut that,” Crockett said. “It seems to work naturally with their 20th to 21st century art holdings, and it’s such a venerable series.”

“Dorrance has created a really warm, friendly environment out of those concerts,” EAR Unit pianist Vicki Ray said. “After 30 years, you’d expect a celebration, at least a gold watch.”