SAMUEL HAS LIVELY PAST, BUSY FUTURE

Gerhard Samuel isn’t much given to looking back, or to reminiscing--at least he didn’t seem so disposed during a long conversation over lunch recently.

The composer, a former associate conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (1970-73), and for the past 11 years leader of conducting programs at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, has just come from a morning-long rehearsal for his next appearance at Monday Evening Concerts, which is tonight.

Still, the continuity of Samuel’s long career emerges in every topic of conversation. At an energetic but mellow 62, Samuel may not dwell on his musical past--yet, it is constantly with him.

Fifteen years after leaving the music directorship of the Oakland Symphony, for instance, Samuel still expresses concern over that much-conflicted organization, which filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last fall.

“I can’t spend a lot of time there,” Samuel, who led the East Bay orchestra for 12 seasons, explains, “but there are a number of ways I can help, and I have told the mayor’s task force that.”

In passing, he also mentions the successful survival of the Cabrillo Festival, of which he was founding conductor and music director from 1963-68. Samuel has an ongoing musical relationship with that festival, and with its current leader, Dennis Russell Davies.

Oakland Ballet, a company whose founding Samuel encouraged during his years there, also occupies his attention--for happy reasons: He served there recently as conductor. He also was music director of San Francisco Ballet (1961-71) and, for two seasons, music director of Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle.

Furthermore, the East Bay dance company will give the premiere of a new, three-act ballet in November, the creators of that ballet being artistic director/choreographer Ronn Guidi and composer Samuel. The composition has occupied Samuel for the past year-and-a-half; he expects to put the final eighth-note on it by his March deadline, he promises.

“I’ve already recorded the first act with my professional chamber orchestra in Cincinnati so that Ronn can begin to make the dances,” he reports.

The subject of the new, full-length ballet, set in the early 19th Century, is the romance between Concepcion Arguello, daughter of then-California Gov. Luis Antonio Arguello, and Russian officer Reznakoff.

“Concepcion later became the first Dominican nun in the state,” Samuel says. “Her portrait hangs in Mission Dolores in San Francisco.”

Being on a sabbatical leave--his first in 11 years--from duties at the College-Conservatory has helped clear time for the project, Samuel acknowledges. Being highly organized also helps.

“Every two years,” he says, “I either go abroad to conduct, or I compose. The choice is mine. Lately, I’ve chosen to write.” The Bonn-born composer--he came to this country in the late 1930s, received training with Hanson at Eastman, Hindemith at Yale and with Koussevitzky at Tanglewood--has a summer home outside Seattle, near his family. There he writes.

One of the fruits of his labors will be heard tonight. The program Samuel will be leading in Bing Theater at the County Museum of Art for the first Monday Evening Concert of 1987 is, typically, eclectic and forward-looking.

It lists Schoenberg’s Suite, Opus 29, for seven instruments; Samuel’s recent “Nocturne for an Impossible Dream,” and Gyorgy Kurtag’s “Scenes From a Novel.”

The Nocturne was written for a double premiere, given in March of 1986 by the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, then in San Francisco in April, Samuel says. It is scored for solo violin, solo piano, solo clarinet and percussion, with a string quintet; it lasts one quarter-hour.

Kurtag’s “Scenes,” for soprano and three instruments, is a cycle of 15 songs on Russian-language poems by the Hungarian Rimma Dalos. Samuel has made his own English translation of them.

And, typically, some of tonight’s participants are colleagues from earlier parts of Samuel’s busy musical life. Soprano Miriam Abramowitsch, for instance, is an associate from the composer’s Oakland tenure, and earlier; her father (who died two months ago), Bernhard Abramowitsch, was, according to Samuel, “one of my closest friends.”

Violinist Peter Marsh, now of the Sequoia Quartet but at one time Samuel’s concertmaster with San Francisco Ballet, also solos on this program, as does percussionist Tom Raney, who will play the cimbalom in the Kurtag work.

“It’s not a long program,” Samuel says, “but it’s so hard to play, I thought we didn’t need to make it longer.”

Yes, it’s been close to 11 years since Samuel left Los Angeles--where, in addition to his duties at the Philharmonic, he also taught at CalArts.

“One of the contributing factors to the move,” he recalls, “was the commuting. I would drive to Valencia from Hollywood, sometimes twice a day, all the while thinking, ‘Why am I doing this?’ ” He claims the driving in Cincinnati is less harassing than here.

Recent financial crises with the San Diego and Oakland orchestras have convinced Samuel that “our orchestras have got to address the necessity of becoming more active in the community. They need to go out among the people.

“Only that way, by bringing music--or the dance, or singing--right to the people out there will that idea that the arts are only for the rich, and for glamorous occasions, be changed.

“Otherwise, we the artists are going to be cut off from our ability to communicate.”