THE PACIFIC SYMPHONY: 7 YEARS OF FAST GROWTH

Seven years ago, the formation of the Orange County Pacific Symphony in Fullerton had seemed a quixotic quest.

No wonder.

Two previous efforts to sustain a truly countywide orchestra had collapsed unceremoniously. Both had failed to win steady audiences or to build up a strong enough corps of major donors.

But the new orchestra’s founders say they have since confounded all skeptics. Not only has the Orange County Pacific Symphony survived, its saga of success is considered one of the more dramatic among new Southern California arts organizations.

“We’re growing very fast. We’re told (by national associations) we’re one of the fastest expanding regional orchestras in the country, in terms of both artistic development and communitywide support,” said Keith Clark, conductor of the 85-member professional orchestra, in a recent interview.

The facts are indeed dramatic:

- This season’s operating budget, expected to close out at about $900,000, is itself a great leap. It was $540,000 a year ago.

- The concert schedule has grown just as spectacularly. There were 13 performances in 1980-81, 30 last season and 56 this season. The schedule now offers opera performances and guest-star recitals, as well as symphonic and chamber works.

- The celebrity collaborations are increasingly star-studded. Last summer, the orchestra backed tenor Placido Domingo at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa. This year, the orchestra presented Marilyn Horne in its own celebrity series. Next month, the orchestra is set to appear with Luciano Pavarotti at the San Diego Sports Arena.

- While seeking bookings at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in 1986-87, the orchestra is also busy building other alliances. There are plans for more concerts at the Pacific Amphitheatre, run by the Nederlander Organization, and for moving the orchestra’s headquarters to a city-leased site in Santa Ana.

There have been notable setbacks, however. The top administrator’s post has been vacated twice in less than two years. New corporate donations continue to lag. And the Orange County Center, which has refused so far to consider any residency bid, has shelved the Pacific Symphony’s application to be named the Center’s “resident orchestra.”

Nevertheless, Pacific Symphony officials have given their orchestra a special new billing in advertisements: “Resident Professional Orchestra of Orange County.”

In 1978, when the then-40-member Pacific Chamber Orchestra was founded as a Cal State Fullerton affiliate, there were no other contenders for the “county orchestra” title.

The Orange County Philharmonic Orchestra had folded 17 years earlier, when its sponsor--the Orange County Philharmonic Society--decided to become a full-time impresario for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and other big-name orchestras. The Symphony Orchestra of Orange County went under in 1969, without winning much support beyond its north county base.

“The county wasn’t ready for a major orchestra of its own (in the 1960s). In our case, the timing has been on our side; the county is maturing artistically,” said Clark, the Pacific Symphony’s founding music director and former principal guest conductor of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra.

After the box office success of the Pacific ensemble’s two-concert debut season (the opener featured the Roger Wagner Chorale), the orchestra was expanded to 85 members, placed under the wing of its own nonprofit association--and began its rapid climb.

Today, supporters contend, the all-professional ensemble has a reputation for artistic excellence (the orchestra has had salaried musicians since it was formed in 1978).

In the orchestra are musicians who have played for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and, among others, the Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony and Columbia Symphony.

The Pacific’s classical repertoire, supporters add, is a richly varied one: from Beethoven, Mahler, Rachmaninoff and Haydn to the American works of Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber and Roy Harris. Guest soloists have included Ruggiero Ricci, Leonard Pennario, Anna Moffo and Dorothy Kirsten.

There have also been the occasional premieres. This season showcased Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, complete with a reconstructed finale, and Debussy’s “Le Printemps,” a recently rediscovered 1884 work.

When it comes to performing halls, the Pacific has made it to the region’s most prestigious venue, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Los Angeles Music Center. In Orange County, the orchestra seems to have played everywhere. To name a few venues: the Santa Ana High School Auditorium, Knott’s Good Time Theater, Plummer Auditorium, Irvine Bowl, Newport Harbor Art Museum, Heritage Park Stadium, Anaheim Convention Center and various college auditoriums.

And the orchestra’s “core audience”--once limited to the Fullerton-Anaheim north county sector--is now, supporters point out, composed of members from throughout the county.

The subscription membership, which had nose-dived a few years ago, is again rising--now 1,175. Membership plunged from 3,000 in 1981 to 600 in 1983, after classical concerts were moved from Knott’s to Santa Ana High School, in an area regarded as dilapidated, and the pops series, which had featured guests such as Mel Torme, Phyllis Diller and Chet Atkins, was phased out.

But audiences at this season’s classical series in the 1,600-seat Santa Ana High hall are the best yet--an average 90% capacity. A first-time event, the chamber-concert series at the 500-seat South Coast Repertory Mainstage, drew audiences at or near capacity.

But all has not been rosy the past year:

- When a “San Francisco Opera Co. collaboration” was announced for 1984-85, it raised a tempest over a semantic faux pas. Opera company executives said the orchestra’s brochure failed to make one point clear: It would be members of the subsidiary San Francisco Opera Center troupe, not soloists from the main company, who were to appear.

- In March, Topper Smith quit after 13 months as general manager, citing artistic responsibilities that “overlapped” with Clark’s. His predecessor, Robert Elias, had lasted six weeks in 1983. Both are now with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Elias as executive director, Smith as orchestra manager.

- The much-promoted efforts to expand corporate support have thus far proven disappointing. This season, only 60% of a projected $150,000 total has been raised from businesses and foundations.

- The organization’s first venture as a major impresario hasn’t done the hoped-for blockbuster business. The recital by mezzo-soprano Horne, who opened the much-touted “International Celebrity Series” March 5 at the 1,000-seat Chapman Memorial Auditorium, was a big disappointment for a superstar attraction: It drew an audience of 800, but was not a sellout.

Nevertheless, Pacific Symphony officials, appearing to have taken the setbacks in stride, said the San Francisco Opera Center is set to return in early 1986. (The subsidiary troupe’s performance of Rossini’s “La Cenerentola” with the Pacific orchestra three months ago did well at the box office, officials said.) The celebrity artists’ recitals, which might not be renewed next season, are being depicted as at least a worthy experiment.

More joint ventures are being discussed. One proposal is for the Orange County Philharmonic Society to present Pacific Symphony concerts next season. The society has presented the Pacific only once, in 1982. Another collaboration under study is with Opera Pacific, the local organization that seeks to stage operas and musicals at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

The Pacific Symphony had also suggested a “cooperative venture” with the long-established but now debt-ridden Long Beach Symphony. Clark said that idea has not gone beyond the suggestion stage.

The partnership with Santa Ana won final city approval this week. Under that plan, the orchestra--now housed in a 900-square-foot Fullerton office suite, with rehearsals at various other sites--is renovating a 25,000-square-foot former church in downtown Santa Ana for offices, rehearsals, conservatory classes and chamber concerts. The refurbishment will cost about $250,000.

The orchestra, which is leasing the structure from the city, will move its offices to the new site in June and hold its first rehearsals there later this summer, according to Clark. The Pacific Chorale is expected to share facilites at a later date, he said.

Even the prospects for private fund-raising are given an optimistic cast.

Like other local organizations, the orchestra faces massive competition from the Orange County Center campaign. (The Center drive to raise $85.5 million for construction and an endowment fund has passed the $62-million mark.)

“There’s no ignoring the Center (campaign). We’re obviously looking for the same big donors, and many of them are telling us there’s a limit to what they can give to the arts,” said Raymond Ikola, the Pacific Symphony’s board president.

But Ikola and other board members--who represent corporate and other key countywide groups--argue that their orchestra organization has considerable fund-raising clout of its own.

Among the underwriters of the orchestra’s concert and administrative programs are Chevron USA, Mervyn’s Department Store, Irvine Co., Disneyland, Pacific Bell and Fluor Corp., as well as the California Arts Council and federal National Endowment for the Arts. Tickets and performance fees account for 51% of the current budget. Costs of a full-scale concert with soloists typically reach $35,000, officials say.

And the next general manager, officials add, will be a specialist in “community development and marketing”--someone to supervise the orchestra’s biggest drive yet for corporate givers, as well as to build the subscription membership back to the 3,000 level. Clark said the new general manager will be announced in the next few weeks, along with two other newly hired aides--an assistant conductor and a community relations coordinator.

There is another cause for optimism: Relations with the Center, once regarded as not too cordial, have significantly improved.

Fifteen months ago, when the orchestra submitted its residency bid to the Center, many Pacific Symphony supporters feared that the Center might become mostly “an import house” for big-name touring companies. The thinking of some Center officials, these critics claimed, was that the local performing groups were not yet “Center caliber.”

Now, Clark and Ikola speak of a “warming attitude” among Center officials toward the Pacific Symphony and other local organizations seeking to play the Center’s 3,000-seat multipurpose theater (now under construction in Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza Town Center and set to open in the fall of 1986).

Delayed in large part by a 10-month-long search for a new executive director (the appointee, Thomas Kendrick, was announced this week), the Center has yet to complete the scheduling of its opening season, however. Prime prospects include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, as well as major opera and dance companies. The Center has yet to enter into contract negotiations with any local organization.

“It’s our understanding the major local groups, including ours, are assured of being part of the Center’s opening season. But, frankly, communications (with the Center) have been rather sparse and sporadic, and since our meeting last fall (with the Center board), there hasn’t been much formal dialogue,” Ikola said, in a recent interview.

But their orchestra, Orange County Pacific Symphony officials like to argue, is indeed “Center caliber.”

“We feel we have worked so hard, for so long, that we deserve a certain amount of recognition--certainly, at the very least, not to be discounted,” said Clark.

“Our record speaks for itself. We have already proven we’re ready for the Center.”