`SEASON OF TRANSITION'; L.A. PHILHARMONIC LOOKING AHEAD TO DISNEY HALL MOVE.

Byline: Marla Matzer Daily News Staff Writer

Jazz programs, more ``themed'' series and a stage extension are in store for the Los Angeles Philharmonic's 1999-2000 season.

Music director Esa-Pekka Salonen, who made the announcement Thursday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion along with managing director Willem Wijnbergen, also confirmed he will take a planned sabbatical during 2000. ``I'll do domestic things, like wash my car ... I'm also supposed to write an opera,'' Salonen deadpanned. Top conductors, including Simon Rattle and Zubin Mehta, will fill in for the rest of the season.

``I don't think the artistic quality will suffer at all,'' joked Salonen of his upcoming break, saying he hoped people wouldn't forget he existed in the interim. ``It would be nice it if suffered a little, but I don't think it will.''

Wijnbergen, who has championed the idea of programs built around marketable themes (such as Romantic period compositions), said next season's schedule will be formatted in that fashion in order to ``keep all our audiences in mind ... we believe there are very different audiences in this city.''

There will be five different orchestral series categories: the Legacy series, focusing on familiar classical to late-Romantic compositions; the Signature series, featuring 20th-century works interwoven into programs; the Rendezvous series, featuring the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra (in its first subscription concerts at the Music Center); the Discovery Series, highlighting world premiere performances and emerging artists; and Romantic Concertos, a series of popular classics for violin and cello soloists.

Celebrity recital highlights include violinist Christian Tetzlaff, soprano Sylvia McNair and an all-star piano quartet made up of Isaac Stern, Jaime Laredo, Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax.

Wijnbergen called the upcoming year ``very much a season of transition.''

``In everything we do now, we're thinking of Disney Hall,'' Wijnbergen said, referring to the long-delayed concert hall planned to be built across the street from the Music Center in downtown Los Angeles. He said the latest projected opening date is fall 2002.

As a step toward the new hall, which features a seating plan where the audience surrounds the orchestra, a stage extension next season will bring the orchestra closer to concertgoers. Wijnbergen quickly added that all Philharmonic subscribers are being contacted to explain the change and invited to come to a preseason open house where they can preview the view from their seats. An earlier attempt at extending the stage was aborted several years ago after some subscribers complained bitterly about poorer sight lines.

The new jazz subscription concerts are being programmed by artistic director John Clayton, who has performed regularly at the Hollywood Bowl. Clayton said details on the programs were not yet available but that Los Angeles performers should be spotlighted on one program. He said the series ``affords us the opportunity to play a mix of familiar jazz sounds alongside premieres.''

No more ``Filmharmonic'' projects, which combine filmmaking and original compositions, are currently scheduled. The first and only of the series so far, composed by David Newman, will receive a repeat performance at the Hollywood Bowl this summer. Salonen admitted scheduling has been a problem, resulting in the cancellation of a planned program next month. But he and Wijnbergen said they hope more will be scheduled as opportunities arise.

Leading up to his sabbatical, Salonen will be busy in the recording studio. In a drive to get several CDs ``in the can'' before his leave, the orchestra will record discs including a Hindemith album with Emanuel Ax as piano soloist on ``The Four Temperments,'' and a recording with Joshua Bell playing the Sibelius and Goldmark violin concertos.

Season tickets are now on sale. They may be charged by phone at `[phone], by fax at [phone], or via the Internet at www.laphil.org; single tickets go on sale in October.

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Photo: (1--2) As the Los Angeles Philharmonic gets closer to inhabiting Disney Hall, music director Esa-Pekka Salonen, left, plans a sabbatical for 2000. Soprano Sylvia McNair, right, is one of next season's celebrity soloists.