Changing Notes at the Music Center : Board Considers Revamping President’s Role and a Possible New Name for the Complex

The search for a new president at the Music Center of Los Angeles County has been put on indefinite hold while its board of directors considers sweeping changes that would overhaul both professional and volunteer oversight of the 30-year-old performing arts complex, according to its new chairman and chief executive officer.

Andrea Van de Kamp, who assumed the volunteer position in June, said the changes, to be finalized next year--and to some degree depending on the fate of Walt Disney Concert Hall--may include a redefined role for the president, the addition of a new international board of directors and even a new name: the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County.

The center has been without a president since January, when Shelton Stanfill left after a two-year tenure to head Atlanta’s Woodruff Performing Arts Center. That same month, Ernest Fleischmann, managing director of the center’s Los Angeles Philharmonic, also announced his resignation, effective in June 1997.

While an aggressive search began to find a successor for Fleischmann, no immediate action was taken to replace Stanfill, who has said he left the Music Center primarily because of an unbidden offer from the Woodruff Center. However, sources say he was disappointed that the Music Center presidency was no more than a fund-raising job, with little authority over artistic or programming decisions at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson Theatre.

What the board is discussing, Van de Kamp says, would change that, increasing the president’s role in center-wide programming and in representing the Music Center in broad areas of arts and cultural policy and management in Los Angeles. Van de Kamp said the new president’s job may be more consistent with that role at other performing arts centers around the country, such as Lincoln Center, where there are individual resident companies with their own directors--like the Philharmonic’s Fleischmann--but also an overarching leader.

While the president wouldn’t be involved in determining what the resident companies present, he or she would oversee such things as center-sponsored festivals, like the recently completed Lincoln Center Festival 96 in New York, as well as programming the theaters when they are not in use by the resident companies and expanding the center’s offerings, particularly in jazz and dance.

Directors of the center’s resident companies--the Philharmonic, the Center Theater Group, the L.A. Opera and the Master Chorale--have not been directly involved in the board discussions, but they are aware of the changes being considered. L.A. Opera chief Peter Hemmings said that if Disney Hall is built, the opera season will probably expand into time opened up at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. “We are anxious to see the other 26 weeks filled and will obviously cooperate with anyone to make sure this is done,” Hemmings said.

Fleischmann is less welcoming of the change. “Obviously, when Disney Hall opens, there will be a need for an impresario-cum-booker for the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion,” he said. “It’s difficult for me to say whether at this point this should be handled by existing personnel at the resident companies, whether there really is a need and justification for the expenditure to start that type of operation. As presently constituted, I think such a position would be redundant.

“At this point, I would say let’s concentrate all our efforts on getting Disney Hall built and see how the opera is able to expand, and see what’s really left over for the Chandler. Right now, I think the board needs to get its own house in order first before we move on to the next step.”

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From Atlanta, Stanfill said: “I feel strongly that the [administrative] review they are going through right now is essential. There’s never been any one person who has looked after the institution as a whole, and there is such a person at Lincoln Center, and there is such a person at Kennedy Center, and there is such a person here. I think it’s essential for the strength and support of the resident companies, and . . . it needs to exist for the survival of the center.”

So far, the Music Center has existed without such a leader. Center founder Dorothy Chandler, 95, who served as volunteer chairman until 1989, lent the center a strong personal identity until she became inactive in day-to-day affairs, but both she and subsequent chairmen and presidents have concentrated on fund-raising, not the artistic mission of the center as a whole. Center-wide programming fell almost by default to the separate entity called the Music Center Operating Co., which acts as landlord at the center, physically maintaining the complex (with county help) and handling administrative details such as coordinating theater schedules.

Over the years, because the resident companies occupy the center’s facilities most of the time, no demand has arisen for an individual to take a larger view of programming. Instead, the operating company fills the theaters’ downtime with a predictable stable of events, including annual “Nutcrackers” and the Academy Awards.

All that would necessarily change when--and if--Disney Concert Hall is built as a new home for the Philharmonic. The future of that project, currently on hold because of a $150-million fund-raising gap, will be decided by the county by next June. If the Philharmonic moves, the need for programming at the Chandler Pavilion will markedly increase.

While unwilling to draw a direct connection with Disney Hall, Van de Kamp said: “I would say that we will be seeking a president within the next year, but I want to wait until I have an accurate job description. . . . I would love to be able to go out and say, ‘This is happening, this is not happening, part of your job will be this, and by the year 1998 we’ll need programming for the Dorothy Chandler.’ So until I have some grasp of that, I think it is inappropriate and unfair [to seek a new candidate].”

Van de Kamp did note that renaming the center would wait for a Disney Hall decision, since the county has agreed to allow the Music Center to offer to name the entire complex after a benefactor who would donate the bulk of the funding gap for Disney Hall. “I would like to do that in a main sweep,” she said.

Van de Kamp is also considering the creation of an international advisory board for the center, in addition to its 70-member board of governors, which would meet about five times a year. The idea would be to encourage the involvement of people who don’t live here year round but do have strong ties to L.A. And she says she will be reemphasizing with board members their responsibilities to the center.

“Board members need to feel a responsibility to participate in at least one [board] meeting and to raise or give money,” Van de Kamp said. “That used to be a requirement, but people have not paid a lot of attention. I’m going to pay attention.”

While she says making changes at the board level is necessary, Van de Kamp believes the most pressing issue is creating a presidency that can make the Music Center an integral part of Los Angeles cultural life, as well as a world-class attraction.

“We are an international arts center, providing the best of Los Angeles County,” Van de Kamp said. “I think it takes a [president] with weight within the arts to make that happen. . . .

“A downtown arts corridor cannot happen in isolation; the whole city has to participate. We need cooperation with the hotels, city organizations, the Department of Tourism. We need to create an atmosphere. . . . As good as Ernest [Fleischmann] is--and he is good--as good as [artistic director/producer of the Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum] Gordon [Davidson] is, that’s something they cannot do. That’s something that we have to work on together to make happen, but it can happen.”