At home with his chamber

Gene Golden stood on the steeply raked stage of the Geffen Playhouse, welcoming a Music Guild audience to a performance by the Borromeo String Quartet.

“Don’t worry. The players will not slide off this very tilted stage,” Golden told an audience last season.

Not literally, at least. But in midseason, Golden was told that he would have to pay an exorbitant rent hike at the Geffen or see his Music Guild dates pulled immediately -- two weeks before the next concert.

That began the kind of scramble Golden, who heads up L.A.’s longest-running chamber music series, is used to. It is not just a function of these hard economic times; rather, it is the perpetual plight of fostering the under-appreciated realm of chamber music.

But, said Golden, “I found the best venue of all: UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall.”

In landing the deal, Golden employed some of the skills he has acquired over the years: He’s a finder, a bargainer, a middleman and possesses a shrewd eye for musical practitioners, all without breaking a sweat on his 80-year-old brow.

He went to Antonio Lysy, head of the string department at UCLA, and offered a master class to be taught by the Borromeos. When Lysy said the university couldn’t pay the quartet for such a class, Golden struck a deal: “You get free master classes, the Music Guild gets a performance space, Schoenberg Hall.” As part of the bargain Golden offered to present the outstanding faculty and its students in a concert.

Golden runs an all-around tight ship, and that allows a chamber group to dock in L.A. for several days, giving the musicians a breather from the constant round of airports, hotels and halls and a chance to play other venues in the area.

He also brings chamber music to neighborhoods beyond the Westside, clearing consecutive dates at Cal State Northridge and Cal State Long Beach and lining up children’s concerts in urban elementary schools, where the quartets and trios teach pupils. He also cuts costs by quartering the ensembles in subscribers’ homes. Since 1985, when Golden took over the Music Guild leadership, he’s acted to offset an increasing decline in chamber music activity. Originally the guild booked big names like the Guarneri, Juilliard and Budapest string quartets.

But today, established chamber music ensembles are closing shop and Golden must rely on new, hardy practitioners; the wear and tear of touring pushes all but the young out of the game. The high-profile groups still working ask fees too high for the guild.

Golden grew up in the small Texas town of Conroe with unmusical parents. But he found himself, as an 8-year-old, glued to radio broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic. At college, he doubled in music and business. He quotes his violin teacher’s verdict: “Stay only in business.” He took the advice, becoming a lawyer.

“So if I knew I didn’t have talent myself the next thing was to acquire the talent of recognizing talent in others, discovering youthful, as-yet unknown musicians,” he says. And that is one big factor in the art and practice of impresarioship, he admits, along with the vicarious thrill of introducing new audiences to the world of classical music.

Golden began his venture into staging concerts in 1976.

“Sidney Harth [then concertmaster with the L.A. Philharmonic] told me he wanted to play a chamber music concert. The idea excited me. He suggested his friends [pianist] Jimmy Levine, who was coming to town to guest-conduct, and [cellist] Lynn Harrell. So I called and they agreed to do it. The result? A first-class trio, under our auspices. Although that was prior to their eventual stardom.”

He next raised money for the Philharmonic’s brand new Chamber Music Society concerts and, on his own, presented a series with violinist Henri Temianka at the Taper Forum.

No tactical hurdle seems to dampen his enthusiasm or lessen his vigor. “I like to quote Winston Churchill on this,” he says. “ ‘The fortunate people in the world -- the only really fortunate people in the world, in my mind -- are those whose work is also their pleasure.’ ”

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Avalon String Quartet

Where: Tonight, Schoenberg Hall at UCLA; Tuesday, Gerald R. Daniel Recital Hall at Cal State Long Beach; Wednesday, Plaza del Sol Performance Hall at Cal State Northridge.

When: 8 p.m.

Price: Single performance tickets $40, with $3 surcharge for UCLA performance. Full-time students, $8. Full-time UCLA and Cal State students, $5. (There is no UCLA surcharge for full-time students.)

Contact: info@themusicguild.org; (323) 954-0404