Culinary Extravaganzas Sparked by SummerFest

RANCHO SANTA FE —  The week just past may have been a musical maelstrom for subscribers to the La Jolla Chamber Music Society’s SummerFest ‘87, but it also was a culinary extravaganza--nearly every performance preceded or followed a reception or buffet of some elaboration.

It all began with the traditional pre-opening night gala dinner and concert given Friday as a thank you to 80 of SummerFest’s major benefactors. Held at the home of arts patrons Peggy and Peter Preuss, the evening commenced with a long, lazy cocktail hour that allowed guests to look around the estate, a house designed somewhat like a Style Moderne castle set on park-like grounds carved out of a Rancho Santa Fe eucalyptus grove.

Gala chairman Marie Olesen took full advantage of the outdoor setting by offering curried empanadas and other hors d’oeuvres on the lawns, and dinner on the flagstone-paved terrace, a location that also held overflow seating for the pre-dinner concert by SummerFest musicians. Although not in itself a fund-raiser (the expenses of the gala were underwritten by Olesen, her husband Merrel, and Melvyn and Wendy Dinner), it was estimated that the incentive of an invitation to the dinner resulted in some $45,000 in revenue for the chamber music society.

Secondary Consideration

But according to hostess Peggy Preuss, proceeds were but a distant secondary consideration. “SummerFest has brought really beautiful, high-quality music to a desert,” she said. “There’s nothing else musical in the summer, so we bring wonderful music for everybody.” (Her son, Peter Jr., had a role in the evening that he approached with dread until the moment arrived; then, like most kids, he turned into a scene-stealer. His job required him to present a rose nosegay to violinist Masuko Ushioda at the end of the concert.)

There was a wonderfully formal, old-fashioned elegance to the evening, since chamber music concerts in grand private homes seem something that belong to a bygone European past. The concert was given in the high-ceilinged drawing room, but both the guests and the music spilled out onto the terrace and brought life to the encroaching darkness. As cellist Ronald Leonard summoned up the dark mood of Kodaly’s program-opening Sonata for Unaccompanied Cello, Opus 8, the just-arriving night cooperated by casting an inky pall over the surrounding hills. (The guests listened quietly, but Rancho Santa Fe’s normally well-behaved insect population chose to buzz along to the music. And since this is the electronic age, numerous electronic wristwatches added their own notes at the hour and half-hour.)

The concert continued with Mozart’s Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, K.493, performed by Ushioda, Jeffrey Kahane, Paul Biss and Peter Rejto. Among the most critical listeners were other SummerFest musicians--a total of 20 were present--and SummerFest artistic director Heiichiro Ohyama, the principal violinist and assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The evening rolled into its third phase the moment the musicians took their final bow. Dinner came late for a San Diego event but just in time for the guests, who sat down to veal tenderloin in red pepper puree followed by a meringue dacquoise with creme anglaise.

Fulfilling a Need

SummerFest general chairman Cynthia Rushing confessed herself delighted both with the scene and with her anticipation of the forthcoming concert series. “San Diego really needs a wonderful regional cultural event that will draw people from around the Southland,” she said. “We want to be that event.”

Event chairman Olesen offered similar comments. “I truly think we have chamber music at the same high level as we have theater in San Diego,” she said. “We can be proud of ourselves, because we’re home to two national resources.”

Among the guests were LJCMS President Joy Frieman and her husband, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Director Edward Frieman; Lois Kohn; Jack and Janet Windle; UC San Diego Chancellor Richard Atkinson and his wife, Rita; Paul and Belle Reed; Arlene and Peter Sachs; Joan and Eugene Bernstein; Joan and Irwin Jacobs; Ellen and Roger Revelle; Liselotte and Mike Terkel; Danah Fayman with Bill Purves; Gigi and Bill Haynor; Bea and Bob Epsten, Shirley and Harry Gillespie and Marianne McDonald with Adrian Jaffer.

SAN DIEGO--At the moment there are several local cultural institutions that almost certainly would shy away from using a shipwreck as a primary decor element at a fund-raising gala.

Not, however, the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre, which Saturday erected just such a set in the alley behind the Horton Grand Hotel as a focal point for “Rendezvous at Pirates Alley,” the theater’s fourth annual gala benefit. The theater also hung the Jolly Roger (that’s the black flag with the skull and crossbones) in the hotel’s courtyard, and supplied all sorts of fun and games for the 225 generally swashbuckling guests.

Theater director Kit Goldman, very much in the mood and sporting a pirate costume modeled after Long John Silver’s (except for the absence of a peg leg), greeted guests by waving a halberd and shouting “Your money or your life!” a phrase this queen of theatrical fund-raising is rumored to have uttered on other occasions. Later in the evening, Goldman exchanged her halberd for a sword so that she could fight a duel with another costumed actor.

Swords weren’t at all hard to come by; indeed, a great many of varying descriptions were to be seen dangling from sashes and sword belts, which occasionally made the situation just a little trying for unwary pedestrians. But the weaponry was part of the dress code, which also ran to plumed tricorn hats, high-rising boots and stuffed parrots mounted on shoulders. (Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer was among the hat and boot brigade. Many men, meanwhile, wore golden loops dangling from their ears in an approximation of 18th Century Punk.)

Actor and script writer Byron LaDue worked up a series of skits in which actors told pirates’ tales that furnished clues to participants in the party’s several treasure hunts. Those who successfully deciphered the riddles (i.e., “What do pirates like to do?” to which the answer is “plunder”) were rewarded with various weekend trips.

Between sword fights and treasure hunts, the guests were invited to try their hands at roulette and blackjack tables, their feet on the dance floor (to Caribbean rhythms) and their knives and forks on an elaborate buffet.

The guest list included actress Mercedes McCambridge, who after leaving one of the gaming tables said that she was “swashed, but not buckled.” (“I never buckle,” she added.) Others were gala chairman Sharon Terrill with Buzz Woolley, Betty Blair, Tom Alexander, Jan Strode, Barry Newman, Kay Bodkin, Marlee Ehrenfeld, Scott LaFee, John and Kathy Howard, Tim and Debra Mills, Dan Pearson, Judy and Alan Brown, singer Claiborne Cary (a recent transplant from New York and sister of actress Cloris Leachman); Louise and Nick Nickoloff and Cecil and Virginia Starling.