With art, as with most civilized commerce, it’s the product that matters, not the source. Happy audiences take for granted the structure supporting their treasures, any conscious gratitude blurred by bliss.
Anniversary seasons become appropriate occasions to recognize the vision, dedication and tenacity that brought about such abundant bounty. La Jolla Music Society (LJMS), now ending its fourth decade, is a widely-respected constant in the universe of art music not only for the quality of its program, but also because it has proven so able to fulfill so well any role required by its community. Concert music by the world’s leading artists is a given amenity in the city, thanks to the Society’s patrons, supporters and operatives.
In its earliest days, it offered hand-made, home-grown music, augmented by selected guest recitalists. As the years passed and the scene evolved, LJMS stayed sensitive to its audience by selective expansion in the direction of the greatest demand. Major symphony orchestras and international dance companies joined the widening world of chamber music artists, and even jazz, on an evolving menu that also included an ambitious outreach program to future audiences.
Sherwood Hall (later renamed Sherwood Auditorium) held all the Society’s programs for 14 years but, when demand exceeded capacity, additional space was found in a dozen other halls, from downtown’s Civic Theatre and Copley Symphony Hall to the Old Globe Theatre. And this season, the renovated Balboa Theatre downtown joins the performance-space roster when a long-time friend of the society, virtuoso cellist Yo-Yo Ma, presents a celebratory 40th anniversary recital on May 17.
In the earliest days, the organization rescued a La Jolla tradition of high-quality chamber music, forming an ensemble and rebuilding a strayed audience. As means were found to invite guest artists of higher and higher caliber, the resident orchestra grew into a valuable musical asset patrolling areas of the repertoire that otherwise would have languished.
When the maturing San Diego musical establishment began filling these same gaps, LJMS continued its pattern of moving toward the greatest need. The growing success of guest recitalists and chamber ensembles suggested a merging of music and climate into an annual festival of international quality, a stellar supplement to the regular music season. The result was SummerFest La Jolla, now 22 years old and one of the most admired chamber music festivals in the world.
When it became obvious that a major need had developed for a reliable local impresario, once more LJMS stepped forward to assume the responsibility, restoring to local audiences performances by the world’s premier symphony orchestras and major dance companies. Attracted by reliable and stable management, many artists accepted return engagements in the years that followed.
At each juncture across the four decades, LJMS has continued to build broad community support, find generous donors, earn critical acclaim and polish its solid business reputation, mainly by a flinty dedication to artistic quality and professional management.
There are patrons still active who remember the roots of chamber music in La Jolla, when Nikolai Sokoloff, the first resident conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra (1918-33) founded the Musical Arts Society of La Jolla. Sokoloff, chief of the Depression-era Federal Music Project from 1935 to 1937, spotted his future home while checking out the national orchestra broadcasts from the California-Pacific International Exposition in Balboa Park. In 1942, he assembled an ensemble of Los Angeles studio musicians, and bused them south for five Sunday afternoon concerts on the stage of La Jolla High School. The concerts usually took place in the midst of whatever scenery was in use that week by a new and recently-born theatre company which called itself the La Jolla Playhouse.
By 1962, when Sokoloff retired for good, the Musical Arts Society had built a serious international reputation by commissioning works from composers such as Roy Harris, Bohuslav Martinů, Jean Francaix, Ned Rorem, Paul Creston and Norman Dello Joio. (The manuscripts still rest in La Jolla’s Athenaeum Music & Arts Library.)
There was a musical lull in La Jolla during the 1960s, one filled in 1968 with the assistance of the UCSD Extension, when the young American conductor John Garvey organized the La Jolla Chamber Players. The first program – May 8, 1969, in what was then known as Sherwood Hall – included works by Toshiro Mayuzumi, Morton Feldman, Edgard Varèse, Pauline Oliveros, Anton Webern and Eric Nielson. There were three orchestra concerts – plus a single recital, by flutist Frederick Baker – in that first season and four concerts each for the next two seasons, all conducted by Garvey and about half with guest soloists.
In 1972-73, in addition to concerts featuring pianist Leonard Pennario, soprano Beverly Ogdon and violinist Zina Schiff, the tradition of major recitals began with the Juilliard Quartet and guitarist Christopher Parkening. For Garvey’s last season (73-74), he shared the podium with Lawrence Smith and violinist-conductor Daniel Heifetz while the recital series became major indeed with cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal.
The 1974-75 season was conducted by Rafael Druian, just retired as concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra, and the recitalists were pianist John Browning and the Guarneri String Quartet. In 1975 Peter Erös, then music director of the San Diego Symphony, began a seven-year association with the newly renamed La Jolla Chamber Music Society (LJCMS), a period marked by increasing importation of major guests, including cellists Janos Starker and Yo-Yo Ma; pianists Gary Graffman and André-Michel Schub, the Aeolian Chamber Players, the Pablo Casals Trio and quartets including the Juilliard, the Amadeus and the Tokyo.
As the organization entered its second decade, all concerts had been played in Sherwood Hall under the supervision of elected boards and volunteer managers, starting in 1969 with Joan Henderson Brown. The first full-time manager, Sharon Lee Master, was hired in 1978 and continued to 1982, when the next era began. Under a new executive director – Geoffrey Brookes – the Society became a full-time importer. And what imports!
Pinchas Zukerman showed up that 1982-83 season, conducting the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for the first of many visits by both. The next season saw the beginning of an extended relationship with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Gerard Schwarz conducted the ensemble in six concerts at the East County Performing Arts Center in El Cajon. Another expansion that season brought I Musici and cellist Nathaniel Rosen to the Old Globe Theatre. The Globe relationship didn’t last, though the Juilliard Quartet and the Munich Chamber Orchestra played there the following season.
Philippe Entremont brought the Vienna Chamber Orchestra to the Civic Theatre in the 1985-86 season, continuing expansion beyond La Jolla and, the following year, Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony cemented the organization’s territorial solidity with its downtown Celebrity Series, at the Civic Theatre and Symphony Hall. That was the first year of LJCMS’ own SummerFest, under the artistic direction of Heiichiro Ohyama, from its beginning one of the country’s major chamber music festivals. And that season of change also brought to town a lanky former cellist named Neale Perl as the Society’s executive director.
Concerts for the 1988-89 seasons included Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic, Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony, Yvgeny Svetlanov and the Moscow State Symphony, Vladimir Ashkenazy with the Royal Philharmonic, Michael Tilson Thomas with the London Symphony, and the last of five seasons when the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra played all the Bach Brandenburg Concerti. A steady tempo of return engagements was firmly established by 1989-90, when cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax, flutist James Galway and the Tokyo Quartet, and pianist Radu Lupu were all returnees.
By 1990-91, there were more concerts downtown than in La Jolla. That was the year of the Orchestre de Paris, the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig and the Moscow State Symphony. The Society had, from the beginning, been devoted to finding and nurturing young performers; in 1991-92, its “Young Artists of Excellence” series was renamed the “Discovery Series,” while downtowners were offered the Cleveland Orchestra, violinist Isaac Stern and pianist André Watts. Esa-Pekka Salonen brought the Los Angeles Philharmonic back to the Civic Theatre after a long absence and the ensemble, which played an annual concert series here for decades, hasn’t been a stranger since. For the 25th Anniversary celebration in 1993-94, soprano Jessye Norman sang Strauss, Messiaen and arias by Samuel Barber and Camille Saint-Saëns in the Civic Theatre.
The next season was the first of two that the Society would be without Sherwood Auditorium, closed by the Museum of Contemporary Art for renovations. But that was no problem. The 26th season included the Society debut of the violinist Midori plus visits by the Royal Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s (led by André Previn) and, yes, Yo-Yo Ma. Those events all happened downtown, true, but Parker Auditorium at nearby La Jolla High School was pressed into service for eight concerts, including the London Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Tokyo Quartet with another Society favorite, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman.
Jessye Norman was back for a benefit concert in 1995-96 on a schedule that also included violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the St. Louis Symphony and the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg. The State Symphony of Russia, the St. Paul and the Orpheus chamber orchestras, cellist Lynn Harrell and pianist Garrick Ohlsson headed the list for 1996-97, the year that SummerFest got a new leadership team: cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han.
The 1997-98 season featured the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic, Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach and pianists Alfred Brendel and Louis Lortie. And for the 1998-99 30th Anniversary season, Neale Perl’s 10th as executive director, the Society’s endowment fund reached $1 million.
To end the century, the Society invited the Moscow State Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, plus soloists, to join with the San Diego Master Chorale for a Civic Theatre presentation of Verdi’s Requiem. Other 1999-2000 events included Michael Tilson Thomas with the San Francisco Symphony, and Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Czech Philharmonic. Also, a new piano series in Sherwood Auditorium was inaugurated with Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Minoru Nojima, Dubrovka Tomsic and Louis Lortie playing recitals.
Pianist Daniel Barenboim opened the 2000-01 season with a recital at Symphony Hall, followed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Russian National Orchestra, pianist Radu Lupu and an evening of gypsy music. The new century also brought a new artistic director for SummerFest, violinist Cho-Liang Lin.
The music was soaring on year-round wings of serene approval, but there remained a gap. The San Diego Opera handled the vocal department but where was music’s other constant companion, the dance? For a city with a dance heritage that went back to Anna Pavlova, Loie Fuller and Ruth St. Denis, it had been far too long between visits by major ballet troupes. Decades had passed since Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev had ruled the Civic Theatre stage with the Royal Ballet. Couldn’t something be done?
Something could! The American Ballet Theatre was available for three performances, a pair of Giselles and a repertory program; and the city fell in love with big-time ballet all over again. The next season, 2002-03, would feature the Stuttgart Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet, along with debuts by violinist Joshua Bell (with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields) and Chinese pianist Lang Lang. It also would be the last season for Neale Perl (who was off to the east coast to head the Washington (DC) Performing Arts Society, replaced by Mary Lou Aleskie), and the first season with a new name that reflected the broadened scope of the organization’s programming: La Jolla Music Society.
Dance continued to blossom in 2003-04 with the Mark Morris Company and the august Ballet Nacional de Cuba, whose redoubtable founder and artistic director Alicia Alonso may have been blind but hadn’t forgotten to bring with her the glamour of ballet’s post-war golden era. And the 2004-05 season may have been the most special dance year of all, as the reconstructed Martha Graham Company came to town with multiple programs including the original Appalachian Spring.
Valery Gergiev brought his Kirov Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas led the San Francisco Symphony and Lang Lang returned as soloist with the China Philharmonic. In 2005-06, the Society added more performance locations to its resources, presenting the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra at the venerable Spreckels Theatre downtown and bringing concerts to the stage of the renovated Birch North Park Theatre. In December 2005, the Society introduced its fifth manager, Christopher Beach, the first to hold the title “President and Artistic Director.”
Joshua Bell with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony, and Christoph Eschenbach with the Philadelphia Orchestra were featured in the 2006-07 season and last year brought the return of the Juilliard Quartet, pianist Emanuel Ax and the Czech Philharmonic plus jazz perennial Ramsey Lewis.
Shopping lists of past seasons, however, can only hint at the richness of the La Jolla Music Society’s heritage. The estimated 600-plus performances in the first 40 years have included thousands of artists, the world-famous and the unknown, all working to animate and preserve the art.
The first professional concerts in San Diego were presented by churches, fraternal groups or hall-owners taking what was available. When first-class theatres became available – the Fisher Opera House in 1892, the Isis in 1900 and the Spreckels in 1912 – professional managers became involved. But the earliest era of first-rate concerts – the series that brought Rachmaninoff and Caruso and Pavlova to town – was a ladies’ organization known as the Amphion Club, operated more or less out of a shoe-box by Gertrude Gilbert well into the 1930s.
Artists continued to find their way to San Diego, some presented by lofty impresarios such as Sol Hurok, others by modest but industrious Community Concerts associations. The opening of the Civic Theatre in 1965 increased the tempo considerably.
Time and changes in the show business eventually freed up enough halls to hold most of the audiences looking for art, but that left a more crucial lack, the hardest of all to overcome, the lack of a presenter. And that is the gap La Jolla Music Society has so gracefully and admirably filled, with a mixture of patrons and artists that seems to work just fine. And should continue to do so for at least another 40 seasons.
Welton Jones has been writing about the arts for 50 years, 35 of which he spent at the San Diego Union-Tribune and its predecessors. In retirement, he writes for sandiego.com, where his reviews were the first to appear on the site.
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