MUSIC : Chamber to Begin Season With Mozart, Beethoven

To initiate her new duties as music director of the Orange County Chamber Orchestra, Diana Halprin will open with an autumn program of Mozart, Beethoven and Donizetti.

Concertmaster of the chamber orchestra since 1987, Halprin took over as director in May after founding music director Micah Levy announced he would pursue graduate studies at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Halprin will lead all programs except one (Jan. 22), which Levy will conduct.

The season’s first performance will be Oct. 2 at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, where all of the season’s programs will take place at 2:30 p.m. Series tickets are $57 to $131. Prices for individual concerts are $14 to $29. (714) 450-3180.

The 1994-95 season:

* Oct. 2: Mozart’s Symphony No. 40; Donizetti’s Allegro; Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with Halprin as soloist.

* Nov. 13: Spohr’s Nonet in F for Strings and Winds; Dvorak’s Serenade in D minor; Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, with William Wolfram as soloist.

* Jan. 22: Elgar’s Serenade for Strings and “Sospiri”; “Dido’s Lament” from Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas”: Finzi’s “Let Us Garlands Bring”; Britten’s “Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridges.”

* March 5: Mozart’s Divertimento in F, K. 138; Campra’s “Motet Italienne”; Grieg’s “Holberg Suite”; Bach’s Concerto for Two Pianos in C and Lutoslawski’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini for Two Pianos, with Jannine Livingston and Mark Uranker as soloists.

* May 14: Pergolesi’s Concertino No. 2; Haydn’s Symphony No. 86; Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, K. 622 and Ibert’s “Concertina da Camera for Alto Saxophone and 11 Instruments,” with Samuel Karam as soloist in both pieces.

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The Mozart Camerata will expand its 1994-95 season by adding a two-concert series on Saturday evenings at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, in addition to its usual five programs at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach.

The season will open at 8 p.m. on Sept. 24 at the Irvine theater with founder Ami Porat conducting works by Mozart, Boccherini and Mendelssohn. This program will be repeated in Newport Beach at 4 p.m. on Sept. 25.

The second program at the Irvine theater will be Jan. 14, with the repeat in Newport Beach on Jan. 15.

“We’re responding to subscriber requests,” Porat said Thursday. “We’ve had substantial demand for (concerts on) Saturday evenings, and the Barclay could provide the Saturday dates.”

The Camerata had played concerts in both facilities during the 1990 and 1991 seasons but had to cancel four Irvine programs in 1991 because of low ticket sales there.

The additional concerts, which will also be performed at St. Andrew’s, will boost the annual budget by 10%, to $150,000, according to Porat, who will conduct all programs. Series tickets for the two Irvine events are $29 to $69. Single tickets will range from $19 to $38. Series tickets for the five programs at St. Andrew’s are $59 to $99. Single tickets: $14 to $29. Information: (714) 631-2233.

Concerts at St. Andrew’s, 600 St. Andrews Road, will begin at 4 p.m. Concerts at the Barclay, 4242 Campus Drive, will begin at 8 p.m.

The 1994-95 season:

* Sept. 24 at the Irvine Barclay; Sept. 25 at St. Andrew’s: Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides” Overture; Boccherini’s Adagio and Allegro; Mozart’s Symphony No. 31 (“Paris”) and Horn Concerto No. 3 as transcribed for cello by Gaspar Cassado, with Yuli Turovsky as soloist.

* Nov. 6 at St. Andrew’s: Benda’s Sinfonia in C; Haydn’s Symphony No. 87; Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K. 364, with violinist Roger Wilkie and violist Simon Oswell as the soloists.

* Jan. 14 at the Irvine Barclay; Jan. 15 at St. Andrew’s: Mozart program, including the Overture to “Le Nozze di Figaro,” Symphony No. 40 and Piano Concerto No. 22, with Daniel Shapiro as soloist.

* April 2 at St. Andrew’s: Adagio from Mozart’s Divertimento in B-flat, K. 287; J.C. Bach’s Sinfonia in G from Opus 3; Haydn’s Symphony No. 42; Cimarosa’s Oboe Concerto, with soloist Leanne Becknell.

* May 14 at St. Andrew’s: Schubert’s Symphony No. 4; Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, with Corey Cerovsek as soloist.

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American Ballet Theatre will dance the first West Coast performances of James Kudelka’s “Cruel World” (set to Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenir de Florence”) on Sept. 21 and 22 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. Also on the mixed repertory program, the same each day, will be Twyla Tharp’s “In the Upper Room” (music by Philip Glass) and Natalia Makarova’s staging of “The Kingdom of the Shades” from “La Bayadere.” As previously announced, ABT will dance Kenneth MacMillan’s “Manon” on Sept. 20, 23, 24 and 25. Information: (714) 556-2787.