L.A. PHIL ANNOUNCES SEASONS AT HOME, IN RESIDENCE IN PARIS.

Byline: Lynette Rice Daily News Staff Writer

Performances of Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5, music by Wagner and Strauss, and two Brahms piano concertos will highlight a new season of romantic repertory by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen will debut one of his compositions, and he will lead the orchestra in works by Schubert ("Unfinished" Symphony), Beethoven ("Egmont" Overture and Symphony No. 4), Schumann (Symphony No. 1) and Druckman (the piano concerto) during the 1996-97 season.

Guest conductors Zubin Mehta, Valery Gergiev, John Adams, Jeffrey Tate, Roger Norrington and Bobby McFerrin, among others, will make stops at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, as will baritones Bryn Terfel and Thomas Hampson, pianists Awadagin Pratt, Emanuel Ax and Boris Berezovsky, violinists Vadim Repin and Pamela Frank, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Making their conducting debuts will be Jeffrey Kahane, Markus Stenz and Joseph Swenson.

The Estonian National Men's Choir will make its first appearance with the L.A. Philharmonic during the 1996-97 season, while the Vienna Boys Choir will perform for a subscription concert. The Los Angeles Master Chorale will participate in four different programs.

The L.A. Phil will commemorate two significant anniversaries: the bicentenary of the birth of Franz Schubert (1797) and the centenary of the death of Johannes Brahms (1897).

Brahms will be remembered with performances of his two piano concertos, conducted by Salonen Jan. 10-12 and March 6-9, while the Celebrity Series will feature violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter in an all-Brahms sonata recital March 5.

The Schubert celebration will include Franz Welser-Most conducting Schubert's Symphony No. 3 in D; Salonen leading the orchestra in the "Unfinished" Symphony; the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra performing "Death and the Maiden" (arranged by Mahler); and baritones Terfel and Hampson performing Schubert songs during their recital programs.

When not performing at the Music Center, the orchestra has plans to tour to Spain and the Canary Islands Festival, as well as make its annual trek to New York's Lincoln Center and Washington, D.C.'s Constitution Hall.

In September and October, the L.A. Philharmonic will be in residence at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris for orchestral concerts and to perform six performances of Stravinsky's opera "The Rake's Progress," a new production by Peter Sellars. This marks the first residency by an American orchestra at the Paris venue.

For information or a free brochure detailing the L.A. Philharmonic's season, call [phone].

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Photo (1--2) Pianist Emanuel Ax and violinist Pamela Frank are among the guest artists scheduled to appear with the Los Angeles Philharmonic during the 1996-97 season.