GOINGS ON : Program Offers Youths Intense Musical Summer : The intensive eight-week course is highlighted by a concert series, which starts Saturday.

Each summer for the past 46 years, the internationally acclaimed Music Academy of the West has attracted budding virtuosos from around the world.

Though hundreds apply, only 140 students--most in their early 20s--are accepted each season.

The intensive eight-week study program they come for is highlighted by an annual summer-long concert series, which commences Saturday at the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara.

Guest conducted by Carl St. Clair--music director of Orange County’s Pacific Symphony Orchestra and the Ann Arbor Symphony in Michigan--a full orchestra of about 90 students will perform Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” Strauss’ “Till Eulenspiegel” and Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet Suite.”

Besides the five-concert Granada Series, another set of performances features members of the academy’s esteemed faculty--the first of which will be Tuesday.

“The Academy Series is a chamber repertoire of faculty performers,” said Jonathan Middleton, student recital coordinator. “The performances provide the opportunity to display the faculty’s own virtuosity.”

Each of the seven concerts in the Academy Series generally feature separate performances by quartets and duos.

Tickets for the Granada Series are $15. The theater is at 1216 State St., Santa Barbara. Academy Series concerts begin at 8 p.m. and are on the campus grounds, 1070 Fairway Road, Montecito. Tickets are $20 and picnicking is encouraged. For information, 969-4726.

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After a two-year hiatus, jazz pianist-composer Larry Karush will again assemble his West Coast quartet for a performance tonight at the Center Stage Theater.

Billed as a “New Music for Jazz Trio and Percussion” concert, the group--with bassist Randy Tico, drummer Tom Lackner and Brazilian percussionist Junior Homrich--will take the stage at 8.

Program highlights: new original compositions “Solar Cells,” a piece inspired by Miles Davis’ classic “Solar”; “Men in the Maze,” structured with Afro-Cuban rhythms; and “Keep a-Knockin,”’ based on folk, ragtime and gospel styles. The program will also include pieces by such Karush collaborators as Jan Hammer, John Abercrombie and Glen Moore.

Tickets are $10, $8 for senior citizens and students. The theater is upstairs in the Paseo Nuevo mall, Chapala and De la Guerra streets. Call 963-0408.

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The Santa Barbara Museum of Art will open Saturday with the first West Coast exhibition of works by photojournalist Werner Bischof, who died in 1954.

The 140-piece retrospective is a photographic journey around the world--through war-ravaged Europe, India, Korea, Hong Kong, North and South America and other locales. The exhibit was organized by Bischof’s son, Marco.

Before Bischof died in a car accident at age 38, he had gained international acclaim as a documentary photographer. Many of his photographs appeared in such publications as Life, Paris Match, The Observer and others.

Filmmaker Marco Bischof will give an informal “Art a la Carte” talk about his father’s photography at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday. A public screening of his “Underway: Werner Bischof Photographer” film will be screened at 7 p.m. July 1 at the museum.

The display will continue through Sept. 5. The museum is at 1130 State St. Call 963-4364.

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UC Santa Barbara’s Arts and Lectures will begin another Summer Films season held Sundays in the campus’ Campbell Hall.

The 10-film series will open this week at 8 p.m. with “Howards End,” an adaptation, starring Anthony Hopkins, of the poignant E.M. Forster novel about class relations in pre-World War I England. Continuing through Aug. 1, the series offers a diverse lineup of some of the year’s most popular and critically acclaimed movies. Other movies include “The Hairdresser’s Husband,” “Strictly Ballroom” and “Tous les Matins du Monde.”

Tickets are $5, $4 for students. Call 893-3535.