CHARITY BAILS OUT GLENDALE SYMPHONY.

Byline: Lee Condon Daily News Staff Writer

The Glendale Symphony Orchestra, threatened with extinction because of money problems, has won a reprieve from a charitable foundation.

A $50,000 gift from the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation comes as the symphony is down to its last $6,000. The symphony had canceled its March concert after fund-raising efforts fell flat, but will use the donation to perform its season finale.

"This is a very significant vote of confidence," said Paul Kinney, president of the symphony's board of directors. "It solves two of our problems, one of which is not dying in the next couple of weeks and the next is to deliver a season. It gives us a little bit of breathing room."

To cover the $55,000 cost of its April 27 symphony at the Alex Theatre, the symphony will use $30,000 from the Parsons grant and $25,000 from the Glendale City Council; the remaining $20,000 from Parsons will be used to help the symphony pay its bills, Kinney said.

"It's a very worthy organization," said Joseph Hurley, president of the foundation's board of directors. "We like to consider ourselves firemen. We look for high-quality things that are in trouble. If somebody does not rescue them, they collapse."

Other groups that the symphony turned to feared throwing good money after bad, Kinney said.

"People don't want to give to something they perceive as being in distress or likely to die next week," Kinney said. "Instead of donations speeding up they tend to go away."

In the 1980s, the symphony had more than 2,800 subscribers and $500,000 in the bank. It played regularly at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion downtown.

The number of subscribers has dropped to 700. Increasing expenses and a $200,000 operating loss in 1993 cut deeply into the symphony's reserves. Revenues were down 15 percent this year, leaving the symphony with only $6,000.

Although the Parsons foundation usually takes six months to review an application, members handled the symphony's request quickly after they read about the financial crisis, Hurley said.

"Here in Los Angeles we have great musicians," Hurley said. "You can make these regional symphonies world class."

Parsons founded the Pasadena-based Ralph M. Parsons Company, a high-profile contractor no longer connected to the foundation. The foundation has assets of $230 million and makes charitable donations of about $10 million a year.