The Center becomes Eclectic

Alex Coolman

The dirty secret of classical music concerts, Dean Corey says, is that

beneath all the bow ties and little black dresses, behind all the urbane

chatter and the professionally styled hair, the audience members are

actually quaking with terror.

They’re scared to death, says Corey, the executive director of the

Philharmonic Society of Orange County’s Eclectic Orange Festival, because

the music they encounter in concert halls is such complex stuff, and a

simple conversation about an evening’s program poses the threat of

exposing their ignorance.

“One of the great roadblocks of people to so-called classical music

performances is they feel intimidated about what’s going on,” Corey said.

“They don’t want to get caught not knowing what’s happening. Heaven

forbid you should mispronounce the name of a composer!”

The Philharmonic Society’s Eclectic Orange Festival aims to replace

this well-concealed terror with something more understanding, Corey said,

and it’s doing it with a range of programs broad enough and innovative

enough to live up to the festival’s name.

Eclectic Orange comprises more than two dozen performances in a

variety of styles to be held at venues in Costa Mesa, Irvine, Santa Ana

and Anaheim. Some of the most interesting works -- the ones Corey regards

as the thematic core of the festival -- will be held at the Orange County

Performing Arts Center’s Segerstrom Hall.

“Poetry of Earth/Oedipus Rex,” an event slated for Oct. 29 and 30 at

The Center, is one Corey considers particularly engaging. It’s a two-part

evening: a digitally manipulated airing of a 1973 lecture, “Poetry of

Earth,” by Leonard Bernstein followed by a performance of Stravinsky’s

“Oedipus Rex.”

The lecture and the music complement each other, Corey said, providing

a listening experience radically unlike that created by the collision of

complex modern music and uninformed eardrums.

“People can go to the theater and focus on getting themselves prepared

to listen to the piece,” Corey said. “The idea is for people to come out

of there with a profound experience of Oedipus Rex.”

Another event in the series, the opera “Dennis Cleveland,” takes the

form of a talk show as its point of dramatic departure. The multimedia

show examines issues of faith and religion in a pop culture-saturated

society and it does so with a rapping style of singing that is closer to

trip-hop than “La Traviata.”

“Each year we’d like to feature something in the festival that does go

beyond the edge,” Corey said of the piece.

The director is quick to emphasize that Eclectic Orange features a

number of more traditional performances -- Monday’s program of

Rachmaninoff works at The Center, for example -- but Corey is convinced

that audiences will appreciate having their aesthetic sensibilities

challenged a bit by the festival’s unconventional options.

“Sometimes I worry that in the classical music industry there’s a

tendency to give people too much of what they want,” Corey said. “You

give them Messiahs and you give them 1812 overtures and then you wonder

why nobody goes. You have to turn them on to some new things.”

Corey said the programming for Eclectic Orange has been inspired by

music festivals in Edinburgh and Salzburg. From the former he took the

idea that classical music can coexist happily with more unconventional

approaches to composition, while the Salzburg festival challenged him to

make ambitious programming decisions.

“What I love about the Salzburg festival is its reach,” he said. “It

just reaches for the moon and the stars beyond. Every year it just

surpasses itself.”

Corey said he hopes that the same spirit will find a receptive

audience in Orange County. If concert-goers are a little frightened at

first, he says, they should remember that the terror is all for a good

cause.

“It’s mean to draw people in with something they may be attracted to,”

he said. “And then maybe they’ll stick around for something else.”

FYI

Local Eclectic Orange performances

The Moscow State Radio Symphony Orchestra plays works by Rachmaninoff at

8 p.m. Monday. Tickets are $15 to $55.

Pacific Symphony Orchestra performs works by Bernstein, Gershwin and

Ellington at 8 p.m. Oct. 20 and 21. Tickets are $18 to $50.

The Anonymous 4 perform the opera-oratorio “Voices of Light” at 8 p.m.

Oct. 26. Tickets are $20 and $38.

“Poetry of Earth/Oedipus Rex” at 8 p.m. Oct. 29 and 30. Tickets are $15

to $55.

“Edgar Reanimated,” a completed version of Sir Edward Elgar’s 1934 Third

Symphony, at 3 p.m. Oct. 31. Tickets are $15 to $55.

“Dennis Cleveland,” a talk-show opera, at 8 p.m. Nov. 2 through Nov. 6.

Tickets are $25.

“Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” a concert based on the setting

of John Berendt’s novel, at 8 p.m. Nov. 10. Tickets are $20 to $35.

All performances are at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600

Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. For more information, call (949) 553-2422