ADVISER APPOINTED FOR L.A. CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Iona Brown, music director of both the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in England and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra in Oslo, has been appointed music adviser to Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO).

Brown replaces music director Gerard Schwarz, who submitted his resignation last year and whose final concert at the helm of the orchestra takes place June 1.

A protegee of former LACO music director Neville Marriner--she joined his Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in 1964--Brown will occupy the Los Angeles post for a two-year period. Her salary was not disclosed.

“We are continuing to search for a music director,” said Wesley Brustad, executive director of the 17-year old chamber orchestra, making the announcement Thursday. “In the meantime, we need leadership and stability. Iona Brown will provide that. She is a very exciting musical personality.”

Brown, 45, has led the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields since the departure of its founding conductor and her mentor, Neville Marriner, in 1974. She joined the 16-member ensemble as a violinist, 10 years earlier. Marriner, recently conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, founded the academy in 1959 and was the first music director of LACO, from 1969 to 1978.

Brown, who conducts the academy ensemble from her first-desk position, always holding her violin, will make first appearances in her new post in a weeklong residency here in January, 1987. At that time she will conduct the orchestra in concerts at Ambassador Auditorium, the Beverly Theatre and in Riverside and the San Fernando Valley, Jan. 21-24.

In the 1987-88 season, she will conduct five of the orchestra’s 12 programs--four of the five being on the Baroque series--in a number of performances around Southern California.

Brustad told The Times that Brown “may or may not” be a candidate for the permanent post of LACO music director. Most of the other conductors in the 1986-87 season just announced--Sir Charles Mackerras, Kent Nagano, Hugh Wolff, Gunther Schuller, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Christof Perick and Frans Brueggen--are candidates for the job, Brustad said.

On tour in Austria with the Academy of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields, Brown was not available for comment.