The Fresno Philharmonic followed its colleague in Sacramento in dodging the bullet last week, albeit a bullet of a different calibre. It's another in the ongoing series--"The way we do it in California," or "Life On The Edge, One More Time." It all started last June after the Fresno Philharmonic told its music director of the past six years, Raymond Harvey, that it would not be renewing his contract come June 2000. Whoops! He went to the Fresno Bee, and shortly thereafter a sizable protest/support group mobilized around his cause, "S.O.S." ("Save Our Symphony").

A busy campaign to vote the Philharmonic Board members out then followed through the summer and Fall. There was no end of letters and articles in the Fresno Bee (which changed sides, to support the board), meetings and carrying on, and two failed attempts at reconciliation, including a visit by the Los Angeles Philharmonic's former executive director, Ernest Fleischman, who got nowhere. Enough S.O.S. sympathizers qualified as voting Philharmonic Association members by owning or purchasing season subscriptions and contributing $250 that neither side was assured of a victory. John Donaldson, a professor of physics at Fresno State and head of the S.O.S. group, reported having 1000 S.O.S.members but allowed that not all could afford to make the contributions.

From the outside, it did seem that firing the board might bring the orchestra down financially. The board projected a resulting withdrawal of $318,000 in contributions and the loss of an additional $90,000 from pending fund-raising activities. While a prominent board member claimed that no one of the S.O.S. leadership had a history of important participation in the arts there, Donaldson said that the S.O.S. had formed interim committees, including one for development under a successful fund-raiser.

In the preceding three years, the orchestra's deficit of $417,000 had been turned into a surplus of $100,000, though the Fresno Phil was enormously benefited by its the infusion of $700,000 in public monies over a period of three years, allotted the association from a short-lived ½ percent sales tax, the so-called "A to Z Fund." The organization's success, however, had to be shared in some measure with the conductor, who pointed to a 40% increase in subscription sales, sold-out concerts and crowds at the pre-concert lectures during his tenure. No one seemed to have any complaints about Harvey's performance as a conductor and musician. The orchestra's musicians seem to be supportive of Harvey, but it's hard to tell, since only 25 filled out the annual conductor evaluation sheets. Harvey's also the music director of the Kalamazoo (Mich.) Symphony.

The basis of the board's decision cited in its letter of September 1 was Harvey's "unwillingness to work together to solve a problem...his attempting to force his will on the organization." The board complained about Harvey's unsatisfactory working relationship with the Executive Director, his refusal to participate in any fund-raising or any meeting with donors, and his opposition to the educational outreach program, though he does conduct youth concerts. There were no public accusations that Harvey's being black and gay was a factor in the dispute, none, that is, until the Associated Press produced a wire story with that implication. Both sides were appalled by that and deny that race and/or life style were ever brought up.

There were three issues on last week's Fresno Phil ballot: whether or not (1)to retain the board; (2)to renew Harvey's contract; and (3) to eliminate any requirement for a financial contribution to be a voting member. After the election, managed by the county electoral commission, the current Philharmonic Board came out on top, 302 to 264. While the votes were being counted, there was an open-mike public meeting, characterized as civil and respectful, with people on both sides speaking in conciliatory terms of "working for the good of the organization and the community."

Last night, the S.O.S steering committee met, but beforehand, Donaldson did not anticipate any specific action would come out of it. An insurrection or plan for another vote later on the same issue does not appear in the cards. However, the S.O.S.group's attorney, Jack Weisberg, didn't think that the story was over. "It's not going to go away," he said yesterday. "The struggle over the Fresno Phil may be over, but the idea that the control of a community's arts can center around a small group of people, that is not over by a long shot."

Interestingly enough, this case had nothing to do with any slackening of interest in the symphony, or with programming or performance levels; to the contrary. The dispute came out of intense interest and caring about the Philharmonic. This could well have been a healthy learning experience for Fresno, but it seems astonishing that a conductor would rather put his future in jeopardy than cooperate, and that a board should be so unguided by the history and experience of orchestras in its category. The people I spoke with who were in the middle of this controversy seemed not even to have heard about the grotesque trials and tribulations just endured a little way up the valley, in Sacramento. Each city's symphony board seems determined to reinvent the wheel, at a ridiculous cost.

On Thursday, a special institution, Noontime Concerts, will hold a benefit concert for a very deserving outfit--itself. Not at noontime, when the series regularly graces the lunchtime audience with fine free programs, but at 6:30 p.m. Members of the San Francisco Symphony will perform Beethoven's String Quartet, Op.74, Harp, and John Harbison's Woodwind Quintet in the historic venue of St. Patrick's Church at 756 Mission St. Wednesdays at noon in St. Patrick's and Tuesdays in the Giannini Auditorium, Bank of America Building, the series presents some of our best performers in consistently well-selected programs. Good crowds turn out, and their responses are warm to this gift of music at midday. Alexandra Aivanoff presides over a great tradition, week in, week out, one of the treasures downtown.

What's so historic about St. Patrick's, homely on the outside yet very attractive and distinctive on the inside, is that until the Earthquake and Fire of 1906, it was a neighbor of the Grand Opera House and as such, the church of choice for the visiting opera stars in the last century. The Opera House, at least the equal in capacity of the War Memorial Opera House and one of the great ones in America, was on Mission St. near Third. It was there that the visiting Metropolitan Opera presented its final S.F.season, with Caruso and Olive Fremstad in Carmen the night before the quake. There's fine music on Mission St. once more.

First time I'd noticed, but for the third year,the Masterworks Chorale of San Mateo is giving its annual Festival of Singing, with four high school choirs as guests, singing individually as well as in the Festival Chorus with the host Chorale and College of San Mateo Singers. Saturday's program,7:30 p.m. at the San Mateo Performing Arts Center, will include as guests the choirs from the Castilleja, Hillsdale, Serra high schools and Woodside Priory. What a good idea. Not just talking about promoting music education, but doing something constructive about it.

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