Barnsdall Park Concert Is a Coming-Out Party for eXindigo! : Music: The new-music organization revives parts of old Ex Indigo Singers in debut concert tonight.

There will be something old, something new and something blue tonight at Barnsdall Park, though it’s not a wedding. More a coming-out party, in the form of the concert debut of eXindigo!, at the Gallery Theater.

The organization is old in the sense that it has its roots in the dormant Ex Indigo Singers, new in that it has been reconstituted and refocused, and blue as in “out of the blue,” which is how eXindigo! artistic director Ted Peterson interprets the unconventional polyglot name.

Peterson and his wife, Laurie Gurman (who’s conductor of the new organization), formed the group as a “performing ensemble dedicated to the presentation of rare and wonderful music,” he says in his newsletter. They were thinking about forming their own new-music group when the opportunity to revive the Ex Indigo Singers came. “That was a lot easier than starting from scratch. We basically just had to repair things--redo the bylaws, reactivate the nonprofit status and reconstitute a board.”

As now formed, eXindigo! will include instrumental music--the opening concert is almost entirely instrumental--as well as vocal compositions, with the emphasis on the music of living composers. Auditions are being held now for the 12-voice choir.

“What we’re doing is building a pool of musicians,” Peterson says. “Eventually, we hope to get to the point where the choir and the instrumentalists can go off and do different things, all under the eXindigo! banner.”

Peterson is also seeking score submissions for the choir and other voice/instrument combinations. He is, he says, quite ready to take risks on new compositions.

“Something that I would like eXindigo! to stand behind is that a composer should be allowed to do anything he or she wants to do,” Peterson says firmly. “There have to be places where you can fail. One of the things we want to do is give people a chance to do something really outlandish, and if they fail, so be it.”

Though a composer himself of eclectic, post-minimalist inspiration, Peterson says that there will be no party style for eXindigo!. “There are no rules today. Good music is good music.”

The program tonight at 8 includes the world premiere of Peterson’s own “Voluntaries,” played by the Pacific Coast Brass, and a revival of his “Dr. John Wants to Talk to Dolphins” for soprano and percussion quartet. Percussionist Ron George will play his own improvisatory “Walking on an Apple,” and Steve Reich’s “Piano Phase”--in the version for two marimbas--completes the agenda.

Works by Aurelio de la Vega, David Ocker and Peterson are scheduled for the second concert, March 3. As both an active composer and the leader of a new presenting organization, Peterson knows that he runs a difficult course, in terms of both demands on himself and the clique-ridden politics of the local new-music community.

“It’s obvious that this is not an easy thing,” the 42-year-old veteran of the tribal new-music wars says. “You have to overburden yourself sometimes. All I know is that we want to do this. I think we can put on concerts that nobody else would do, have some fun, and give some people some opportunities. The only way I know how to do it is to just go out and do it.”

Future eXindigo! concerts may present Reich’s “Tehillim,” when the choir is functioning, and Peterson’s music theater pieces “Venus in Furs” and “Arboreal Genocide.” When the budget can cope with such extended efforts, multimedia theater pieces will occupy an important place in eXindigo! endeavors.

“There is no doubt in my mind that we live in a primarily visual age,” Peterson says. “The impact of film and video is just overwhelming. Mixing film as a compositional element with music is something I am very interested in.”

For now, he is concentrating on getting eXindigo! up and running, creating the track record that will make getting funding and attracting new work easier. He is reaching the new-music community through a newsletter entitled eXnihilo!, which has already seen two provocative issues.

“Talking about building an audience, that’s another thing,” Peterson sighs. “It’s easy to get so locked into the work of composing that you forget you’re writing for people, but trying to convert people who don’t want the experience is useless.”