Art Organizations Finances

It's not going to be the most exciting, expansive year in the local arts community. Unlike last year, no spanking-new cultural venues are expected to sprout. But judging from a handful of developments planned, as well as interviews with arts leaders, there's growing confidence in the region's economic recovery. "I'm feeling very optimistic about the economy and Orange County as a whole," said Tom Tomlinson, president of the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

L.A. Opera's new production of Saint-Saens' "Samson et Dalila" (borrowed from San Francisco Opera) continues at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Sunday and Sept. 26 at 2 p.m., Wednesday and Sept. 18, 21 and 24 at 7:30 p.m. Denyce Graves sings the role of Dalila at all performances. As Samson, Placido Domingo sings Sept. 18, and American tenor Gary Lakes takes the role Wednesday and Sept. 21, 24 and 26. Lawrence Foster is the conductor, Nicolas Joel the stage director.

The county's largest arts institution has appointed a new chief fund-raiser, filling a post that had been vacant for two years. J. Terry Jones, 54, was named Monday as vice president of development at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, effective Sept. 1. Jones, an Irvine resident, has been the top fund-raising executive at Pitzer College in Claremont since 1992 and has extensive experience in university settings, including UC Irvine (1989-92) and UC Santa Cruz (1986-89).

In 1989, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts was in trouble. The museum is the largest and most important encyclopedic art museum in its Upper Midwest region, with collections numbering more than 85,000 objects spanning 4,000 years of world history. But attendance was low, membership stagnant.

As the latest battle over the future of the National Endowment for the Arts looms, supporters and even a fierce critic of the 33-year-old agency are predicting that it once again will escape the Republican chopping block. "Unfortunately, I think the agency will rise from its ashes," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), an NEA foe. He recently derided as "absolutely disgusting" many of the artworks the agency has helped fund and is among those wanting it to receive essentially a "close-out" budget.

The California Arts Council has approved 16 1997-98 California Challenge Program grants totaling $672,500. Among the organizations receiving the grants, which are given to groups with budgets of at least $100,000, are public radio station KCRW-FM ($70,000), Pasadena's Armory Center for the Arts ($27,500), the Museum of Jurassic Technology ($25,000) and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco ($25,000).

In the wake of last week's Senate vote to cut the National Endowment for the Arts budget by one-third, local artists and arts organizations have begun speculating what accommodations they may have to make--as well as considering the possible fallout from a planned restructuring of the agency that, among other things, calls for the elimination of grants to individual artists. "[Losing] a third of the arts budget is out of whack with increases at the Pentagon, you know?"

Long Beach Civic Light Opera, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Friday, has been given a grim prognosis by its erstwhile producing artistic director Luke Yankee. "I don't see how it can come back unless a major donor gives it a million dollars," Yankee said Monday. He said the organization, which focuses on star-studded revivals of musical theater classics, has an ongoing debt of approximately $275,000.

A top executive of the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana on Tuesday became the latest of at least a half dozen officials to leave there in the past 18 months. "I was excited about the challenges the Bowers faces and the role I could play in helping Bowers achieve its goals," Margaret Mooney, vice president of marketing and sales, wrote in a memo to the staff Tuesday. "However, I feel that I cannot be effective here at this time." Mooney would not comment further.

L.A. Opera's new production of Saint-Saens' "Samson et Dalila" (borrowed from San Francisco Opera) continues at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Sunday and Sept. 26 at 2 p.m., Wednesday and Sept. 18, 21 and 24 at 7:30 p.m. Denyce Graves sings the role of Dalila at all performances. As Samson, Placido Domingo sings Sept. 18, and American tenor Gary Lakes takes the role Wednesday and Sept. 21, 24 and 26. Lawrence Foster is the conductor, Nicolas Joel the stage director.

A top executive of the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana on Tuesday became the latest of at least a half dozen officials to leave there in the past 18 months. "I was excited about the challenges the Bowers faces and the role I could play in helping Bowers achieve its goals," Margaret Mooney, vice president of marketing and sales, wrote in a memo to the staff Tuesday. "However, I feel that I cannot be effective here at this time." Mooney would not comment further.

The county's most powerful arts institution is about to up the ante for the movers and shakers who serve on its board of directors by telling them exactly how much they'll be required to give or raise each year. Currently, members of the Orange County Performing Arts Center board of directors are informally expected to bring in $50,000 each, but that has never been enforced.

The California Arts Council has approved 16 1997-98 California Challenge Program grants totaling $672,500. Among the organizations receiving the grants, which are given to groups with budgets of at least $100,000, are public radio station KCRW-FM ($70,000), Pasadena's Armory Center for the Arts ($27,500), the Museum of Jurassic Technology ($25,000) and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco ($25,000).

The Music Center Operating Co. and the Southern California Theatre Assn. have announced the dissolution of their partnership to present dance at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles. After what SCTA board President Rosalind Wyman called "a staggeringly disastrous season," the group, founded by local performing arts producer James A. Doolittle, will no longer present dance in Southern California.

It was a symphony orchestra that had no musicians, no concert hall and no conductor, and was missing almost everything that makes an orchestra an orchestra. Overwhelmed by debt and unpaid taxes, the Orange County Symphony had fallen so low that rumors of its death had been constant for three years. But the symphony lives. It is operating in the black and this summer had a series of three concerts in Coto de Caza. In November, the symphony will give its regular Children's Concert in Garden Grove.

The county's largest arts institution has appointed a new chief fund-raiser, filling a post that had been vacant for two years. J. Terry Jones, 54, was named Monday as vice president of development at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, effective Sept. 1. Jones, an Irvine resident, has been the top fund-raising executive at Pitzer College in Claremont since 1992 and has extensive experience in university settings, including UC Irvine (1989-92) and UC Santa Cruz (1986-89).

It was a symphony orchestra that had no musicians, no concert hall and no conductor, and was missing almost everything that makes an orchestra an orchestra. Overwhelmed by debt and unpaid taxes, the Orange County Symphony had fallen so low that rumors of its death had been constant for three years. But the symphony lives. It is operating in the black and this summer had a series of three concerts in Coto de Caza. In November, the symphony will give its regular Children's Concert in Garden Grove.

In 1989, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts was in trouble. The museum is the largest and most important encyclopedic art museum in its Upper Midwest region, with collections numbering more than 85,000 objects spanning 4,000 years of world history. But attendance was low, membership stagnant.

As the latest battle over the future of the National Endowment for the Arts looms, supporters and even a fierce critic of the 33-year-old agency are predicting that it once again will escape the Republican chopping block. "Unfortunately, I think the agency will rise from its ashes," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), an NEA foe. He recently derided as "absolutely disgusting" many of the artworks the agency has helped fund and is among those wanting it to receive essentially a "close-out" budget.

The goal of the Orange County Performing Arts Center is to rival Kennedy and Lincoln centers, its top officials say. In one respect, the center here already surpasses both. It costs more for the county's major orchestra, the Pacific Symphony, to rent Segerstrom Hall than it costs the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall in Manhattan. That's on an average night.