FACES OF THE L.A. PHIL.

Byline: David Mermelstein Correspondent

To many, the face of the Los Angeles Philharmonic belongs to Esa-Pekka Salonen, the orchestra's long-serving and photogenic music director. But there are other faces in the crowd of musicians who appear on the Disney Hall stage most weeks from early fall to late spring.

And though Philharmonic subscribers may recognize many of these faces, they are mostly known only in the way one feels a vague kinship with other regulars at a favorite bar or coffee shop - even less so in many ways. Yes, of course, we revel in their music making, but what do we really know of these people, short of what instruments they play?

In a modest effort to bridge that wide gulf, here are four sketches of Philharmonic players, all full-time members of the orchestra. They were chosen to reflect the ensemble's diversity with respect to age, sex, race and background. But in an organization that employs 103 musicians, any number of their colleagues would have fit the bill equally well. Our primary hope is that these small portraits will humanize a collective of uniformly dressed individuals whom we never hear talk, but who speak to us - through music - all the time.

BOYD HOOD, TRUMPETER

You wouldn't call what happened to trumpeter Boyd Hood in the fourth grade a lucky accident. Yet the fire that burned 60 percent of his body and caused his right fingers to be amputated at the first joint above the knuckles was partly responsible for his commitment to an instrument he had started playing only recently.

``At first, we propped it up on my knee or the couch,'' he says now, nearly six decades later. ``And it turned out that my fingers just fit the trumpet.''

Hood, who is also a composer, hails from a small farming town near Dallas and credits his parents with instilling in him perseverance and a love of music. ``My father made it to the training camp for the Detroit Tigers but was then drafted, and my mother danced professionally on the stage of the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood before she married,'' he says.

After Hood's studies at the Eastman School in Rochester, N.Y., he had a fairly routine series of orchestral appointments. But in the mid-1960s, the trumpeter made a big change, spurning the Houston Symphony to teach at Indiana's Ball State University, which in turn led to an appointment at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia.

Though he and his family had ``a rich life'' in Canada, moving to Southern California in the mid-1970s after an extended visit wasn't hard. ``I had forgotten what it was like to play on the level of the Philharmonic or the studio orchestras,'' recalls Hood, who joined the Philharmonic in 1982, leaving the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, where he had been first trumpet since 1979.

Hood and his wife, who taught English at the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks for 23 years, continue to live in the same North Hollywood house they've had since moving here, as does their shitsu, Grover. Their two sons, both screenwriters, live nearby.

Since moving to L.A., Hood, who has been teaching at USC since 1980, hasn't composed, but that may soon change. ``I'm starting to get the bug again,'' he says.

SARAH JACKSON, PICCOLO 

Listening to Sarah Jackson, you realize that the piccolo gets no respect.

``I hesitate to use the word shrill in describing it,'' she says, attempting to belie her instrument's sometimes-negative reputation. ``Yes, there's the really high-pitched 'Stars and Stripes Forever' thing,'' she says. ``But there's more to the instrument than that. Way more.''

Like what? ``Well, its rich, woody quality and its earthiness,'' she says, clearly besotted. ``It melts your heart.''

A relatively recent member of the orchestra, having joined in 2001, just as Disney Hall was opening, Jackson grew up in Canada and began playing first the flute and then the piccolo pretty much by accident.

``In third grade, we were allowed to chose an instrument,'' she recalls. ``I picked the saxophone, but it was too big. Then I tried the clarinet, but I couldn't cover the holes and rings simultaneously. Then in junior high, it was a choice between phys ed and band, so I picked band and selected flute because it was at the top of the list. I was terrible at it, and I never practiced.''

That might have been the end of it but for the latest in a series of family moves. ``I had an entire summer in a new house. No friends. No school. But I had my flute and my band book, so I learned it cover to cover. And I discovered I really liked it.''

Sometime in high school, she was introduced to the piccolo. ``Talented flute students are usually thrown a piccolo and told to play it, though a little instruction would be helpful,'' she says.

Having moved from Vancouver, where she was with that city's orchestra for 10 years, Jackson and her husband, conductor Clyde Mitchell, now live in South Pasadena with their cats Spanky and Jade.

In addition to championing the piccolo, Jackson loves to cook, especially Indian, Japanese and Chinese food. ``I like making everything from scratch,'' she says.

BEN HONG, CELLIST

To hear assistant principal cellist Ben Hong tell it, playing the cello was practically destiny. ``My father picked the instrument for me,'' says the 36-year-old Taipei-born Hong. ``He was a professor but also a violinist and a singer, and he always liked the cello. I started when I was 9.''

The match was a good one, and by the time he was in his late teens, Hong was certain he would be a professional musician. Of course, by then it was a little late for second thoughts. Having won a national competition, Hong, at 13, had been sent from Taiwan to the precollege program at New York's Juilliard School.

From Juilliard, he headed to USC, to study with the renowned cellist Lynn Harrell. But his next journey was just a few miles north, to the Music Center. Unlike most players in the Philharmonic, Hong had no previous professional experience before joining the orchestra. But that clearly didn't matter, because eight months after starting as a section player in the 1993-94 season, he was appointed assistant principal cello.

Hong lives with his wife and 3-year-old son in Culver City. They recently moved into a house they had built from the ground up. ``It was a big ordeal, but we're very happy,'' says Hong.

In addition to his Philharmonic duties and some private teaching, Hong works as a teacher's aide at his son's co-op nursery school. ``It's good therapy,'' he says. So, apparently, is motorcycling, a recent infatuation.

``I commute with the motorcycle,'' says the cellist. ``I come into the Disney Hall with full leather and a helmet looking like a Power Ranger.'' And he says he's not alone, suggesting that two other musicians also get to work on two wheels. But he's not naming names.

RAYNOR CARROLL, PERCUSSION

Though born in Baltimore, percussionist Raynor Carroll, 47, is as local as you can get. He moved to Pasadena at four and hasn't left since.

``I love Pasadena,'' he says, seeming to pity anyone who might want to live elsewhere.

He says his love of drumming was ``there from the beginning.'' And he was encouraged by musical parents - a father who sang in the church choir and a mother who played the organ there. But, for Carroll, ``it was always drums. I couldn't see myself playing the violin.''

After Pasadena High School, where he performed in the marching band and the school orchestra, he attended Cal State L.A., studying with Mitchell Peters, the Philharmonic's venerable timpanist. He credits Peters with setting him on his present path.

``I really didn't start studying until Cal State L.A.,'' he says. ``I was a late bloomer, and Mr. Peters led me in the right way, gave me the proper instruction.''

In 1983, Peters encouraged him to audition for the Philharmonic. ``I didn't have a resume, but I went ahead and did it at his suggestion, and now there's now,'' he says.

Carroll's first season with the orchestra, playing timpani and percussion, was music director Carlo Maria Giulini's last, which still saddens Carroll, who was elevated to principal percussion in 1986.

Drumming borders on an obsession for this musician. When he needs a change of pace from performing or teaching percussion - or from writing and publishing books on percussion, which he also does - Carroll turns to ... drumming.

``I love West African drumming,'' he says of an interest that began in 1999 during a sabbatical. ``It balances the other side of my brain, and I like to do that as much as possible.''

CAPTION(S):

5 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) The PLAYERS

AS the L.A. Phil embarks on a new season, meet the musicians who bring Beethoven and Mozart to life

(2 -- color) BOYD HOOD

(3 -- color) SARAH JACKSON

(4 -- color) BEN HONG

(5 -- color) RAYNOR CARROLL

David Sprague/Staff Photographer