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WORLD PREMIER: The West Side Madrigalists introduce David Earnest'suntitled lyrical work at a world premier November 26, as part of the FirstUnitarian Church%u2019s %u201c Meet the Composer%u2019%u2019 program.M ix in g E le m e n tsChurches Adopting A Broader VistaBY C. FREDERIC JOHNFor the series music lover, the seasonal progression from summer to fall can be marked by the migration of performers from open-air stages and bandshells to opera houses, concert halls, and numerous churches.New York City churches have become centers for professional-calibre concerts%u2014 not only of religious music, whether within an actual service or not, but of all kinds%u2014instrumental and vocal, sacred and profane.Two Brooklyn Heights churches with established series have already begun the new season, which promises an exciting mixture of traditional and innovative elements. Both First Presbyterian Church, at 124 Henry Street, and First Unitarian, Pierrepont Street at Monroe Place, have served the larger Brooklyn community by providing attractive and convenient settings to various performers for some years. The differences between the two series underscore the possible approaches to program and presentation withinenterprises largely dedicated to chamber music.First Presbyterian offers a regular weekly concert Sunday evenings at 8 p.m. The current season emphasizes recitalists and small chamber ensembles, but larger groups also appear.All but one of the musicians perform in the church itself, a historic ediface erected in 1846. Fine acoustics and a series of 10 stained glass windows by Tiffany and other turn-of-the century masters offer a setting rewarding for both ear and eye. The one exception is local classic guitarist Don Witter, Jr., who appears several times each year at the church. Witter plays in one of the church house%u2019s upstairs rooms, a setting more conducive to the close rapport with the audience which he establishes through spoken introductions to each piece.This Sunday, November 5, pianist Michael Collier offers an unusually eclectic and challenging program, comprised of works by Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, Schoenberg and Stravinsky, with not a single sonata among them. Collier is on the faculty at Queens College.Mozart is represented by his brief, isolated Adagio in B minor, K. 540. Penned in 1788, it is one of the most perfect reflections of the composer%u2019s deep despair toward the end of his brief life; He died three years later.In sharp contrast stands Schumann%u2019s sprawling, 3-movement Fantasy in C, Op. 17, a virtuosic kaleidoscope of emotions.Collier will also play relatively short works by Brahms%u2014three pieces from Op. 118%u2014and Schoenberg%u2014his daring Klavierstuck Op. 11, #2. The latter dates from 1908, when the composer was experimenting with atonality but had not yet developed his revolutionary serial technique.Violist Jack Rosenberg appears at First Presbyterian Nov. 12, accompanied by Jonathan Gessner. The program includes a Suite for viola by J.S. Bach in Eb, and a Concerto by a hitherto totally obscure classical composer, Ivan Handoshkin (1747-1804).The two performers will be joined by cellist Amy Camus for Brahms%u2019 Trio Op. 114. Brahms developed an infatuation late in life for the sonorous clarinet, and wrote several sonatas and chamber works for the instrument. The sonatas and this trio also appeared in versions with a viola substitu ing for the clarinet, as will be heard here. The work exudes a mellowness that should warm the entire audience whatever the temperature that night.Future events in the series include pianist Paulette Hios (Nov. 19), a cellist (Dec. 3) and a lutenist (Dec. 10). (There will be no concert Nov. 26.) December 17 brings the traditional Christmas concert with the church%u2019s choir joined by a community orchestra.First Unitarian Church has adopted a more flexible approach in offering music to the public by avoiding a fixed format. Director of Music and organist Clifford Gilmore even prefers to avoid the term %u201c series.%u201d But with three events in November alone, music at the Pierrepont Street Chapel amounts to more than an occasional aside.Flexibility is achieved by presenting concerts both within and outside the service, by varying times and lengths of programs, and in obtaining quite distinct ensembles.This Sunday at 11 a.m. Gilmore will direct his choir in a performance of Mozart%u2019s Litany in Bb, K. 125, with additional soloists and organ. The young Mozart (he was 16 when he wrote this) betrays here not only his musical gifts but his recently acquired Italian influence. He also showed a marked disregard for the somber spirit of the text.On November 19, at 12:30 p.m., the Concertino String Quartet will perform Samuel Barber%u2019s String Quartet Op. 11 in a brief lunch-hour concert. The Quartet already appeared in a similar noon-time event October 8.The West Side Madrigalists will present a world premier of a work by David Earnest on November 26 at 5 p.m., in a %u201c Meet the Composer%u201d program. The Manhattanbased group, led by Judith Otten, consists of five vocalist with an impressive breadth.BAM: Satisfying All Musical Persuasionsthe %u2018in%u2019 art form. Offerings include Maria Benitez (February 1-4) who mixes original choreography and traditional flamenco; the Ballet Hispanica of New York (January 11-14) whose work ranges from classical Flamenco to modern and jazz works by contemporary choreographers; and the Valerie Hammer Project (January 25-28) presentation of Op Odyssey, a poetic totalcompany will present Songs of Mahler, Divertissement D%u2019Auber, Mobile, Stravinsky Capriccio and Con Amore. On November 5, the program will include Beethoven Quartets, Stravinsky Pas De Deux, Shinju, Q.aV. and II Distratto.Ballet buffs will be cheered by the return of the Pennsylvania Ballet in the fall (November 21-26) and winter (February 27-%u2605 %u2605 %u2605 %u2605Philharmonia Notes A Historic EventBY KAY HOLMESIn the beginning, there was the big BAM. Or so it seems to the present breed of brownstoners who view the Brooklyn Academy of Music as always there, as constant as the sun itself and at all times more illuminating.The solid, substantial, neo-Renaissance rectangle could well have a red ribbon around it and a tag addressed to downtown Brooklyn. For its resurgence has been a gift to the community in the best civic symbiotic sense and its success is marked by the fact it%u2019s no longer remarkable that another season of superb drama, dance and music has begun.Ten years ago BAM seemed about to go the way of the Toonerville Trolley, destined to be relegated to the misty memories of the arts-minded. Most of those types were thought to reside in Manhattan and were studiously unaware of the Brooklyn Bridge. The very earth on which the building sat seemed to be quaking in response to the tremors of the surrounding community. The future boded as barren as a single holly bush. Enter Harvey Lichtenstein (in 1967 to be precise) and the rest (hallelujah!) is history.BAM discovered its pugnacious acronym, regained a confidence befitting its size and became the house of smash hits. All this was done in the most straight-forward, old-fashioned way possible: by offering irrestible talent at reasonable prices. Subscriptions leaped from 6,000 in 1973 to 100,000 today and most of the subscribers live in Brooklyn. Everyone, it seems, wants to jump on the BAM-wagon.WHAT%u2019S COMING UPWhich brings me to the joyous task of revealing what%u2019s up at BAM this 1978/79 season. There%u2019s something for all persuasions, from experimental theater to big band jazz, from chamber music to children%u2019s specials, from the oldest balletr n m n a n v i n 1 m i i n f c v n n o n f' X %u2022/ * %u201c%u201d* J -%u25a0 W '*%u2019*** *%u2019brightest and especially Brooklyn Philharmonia%u2019s. And it%u2019s already begun, despite the operating handicap of a $3.6 million facelift in process.DANCE DANCE DANCE,Dance, in its many forms, is very big at BAM this year, reflecting its new status asCelebrating its Silver Anniversary this season, The Brooklyn Philharmonia has attrac ted renowned soloists Shirley Verrett, Itzakh Perlman, Michel Block and Gary Graffman to grace its Major Concert Series in the BAM Opera House. And the now familiar Meet the Modems series will return featuring post-concert discussion panels with such luminaries as Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen Sondheim, Allen Ginsberg and Larry Rivers.Lucas Foss, Music Director of the Philharmonia since 1971, has successfully changed its character in order to serve a wider musical public. He instituted the innovative marathon concerts, gave contemporary music a permanent place in Philharmonia programs, initiated summer park concerts and expanded the services to children.Antonia Brico will return to the Philharmonia this season to conduct the popular, three concert, Sunday afternoon Family Series, beginning November 23 with Myths and Fairy Tales. The program win portray a musical parade of animals, fairies, hobgoblins and other out-of-this world creatures to captivate the young.Upcoming Major Concert Series programs feature opera star Verrett in an allWagner program (November 10-12), violinist Perlman in an all-Sibelius program (December 15-17) and pianist Block in a program of Ravel and Debussy (January 26-28).-K .H .Philharmonia lauches its 25thAnniversary season in concertwith the golden voice of notedsoprano, Shirley Varrett.March 4). The fall season will be devoted to a new full-length production of the comic masterpiece, Coppelia. The three-act story ballet will be staged by Petrus Bosman, formerly of England%u2019s Royal Ballet, with theater work in collaboration with sculptor Doris Chase.A single enchanting evening is booked on November 19 by Eurythmeum Stuttgart, the German dance company which portrays eurythmy, an art of movement arising out of unconscious responses to the sounds of music or poetry. Accompanied by the Romanian State Orchestra, the company%u2019s choreography makes it possible to %u201c see%u201d sounds in a sequence of appropriate movements. Actress Sarah Burton speaks for eurythmy in the words of Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, J.R.R. Tolkien and others.After a 20-year absence, big bands are back at BAM, starting with that living tradition, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on November 9. This unique BAM-session comes from the very men, now in their 70s and 80s, who created New Orleans jazz 50 years ago. On January 25 BAM brings back the memories of days gone by with the toe-tapping music of the Duke Ellington Orchestra directed by Mercer Ellington. And on April 26 the legendary Count Basie will come to town, with his orchestra, to spin his special, magical, musical spell.And now for some hot news.... The Dodger%u2019s are back in Brooklyn, only not to play ball. The newly formed Dodger Theater has stepped into the void left by the departure of the Chelsea Theater to Manhattan, and promises to continue an experimental tradition that once gave BAM such experiences as Slaveship, Candide, AC/DC and The Contractor. The Dodger%u2019s will open on December 5 with the American premiere of Gimme Shelter, a trio of plays by English Playwright Barrie Keeffe which takes an angry yet humorous look cti iiie iucais of a wasteful society seen through the eyes of its youthful casualties. Their second production will be a presentation of the Bread and Puppet Theater%u2019s Joan of Arc January 9-19.For tickets to any of the above call 636-4100 or write to BAM Box Office, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn 112 7.^ o IH e r^ n S T a S