MUSICAL SALUTE : WINTERFEST KICKS OFF A 2-WEEK CELEBRATION

The Music Center’s first “US Sprint WinterFest,” a festive, two-week celebration that transforms the Plaza into a sparkling fantasy of holiday lights, strolling carolers, mimes and musicians, received an appropriate inauguration Tuesday night in a soaring tribute to Los Angeles’ most indigenous forms of music--film scoring, jazz and pop.

With five award-winning film composers and an 80-piece orchestra on hand, the movie connection was appropriately dominant. Lionel Newman, the senior member, kicked off a program that was a kind of mini-history of movie music with his moody classic “Again,” then strung together a medley of themes from such 20th Century Fox perennials as “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,” “Three Coins in the Fountain” and “Hello Dolly.”

Ironically, Newman, one of the founders of a film-scoring dynasty, has taken a back seat lately to the work of his gifted nephew, Randy. In a touching, but mercifully unsentimental gesture, he conducted an excerpt from the younger Newman’s well-crafted score for “The Natural,” then stepped aside while Randy sang four notably non -filmic songs--”Birmingham,” “Sail Away,” “Political Science” and “I Love L.A.”--that furnished one of the evening’s genuine highlights.

Dave Grusin, a musical hyphenate who roves easily from keyboard artist to composer to record executive, conducted a brief excerpt from his deceptively simple, but creatively dense music for “On Golden Pond.”

Shifting into his executive persona, he awarded the balance of his time to pop-jazz singer Diane Schuur, a principal artist for Grusin’s record company. The much-ballyhooed Schuur sang three songs that confirmed that she is a one-level emotional performer who--at this stage of her career, at least--has far more technique than emotional range.

Henry Mancini’s set--a model of elegant music-making--showcased Ray Pizzi’s marvelous tenor saxophone in the familiar “Pink Panther” and trombonist Bill Watrous in the recently revived theme from “Peter Gunn.”

A collaboration between trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and composer John Williams provided the evening’s other high points in two, almost casually brilliant improvisations by Marsalis on “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “Summertime.”

Williams, perhaps the most successful film composer of the last decade, brought the evening to a fitting climax with an excerpt from his evocative score for “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial.”

A final coda re-established the “WinterFest” connection via a spirited performance of “Reach Out And Touch” by singer Vicki McClure and the International Childrens Choir.