Henry Segerstrom is synonymous with the Performing Arts Center, but it’s his late brother Hal’s side of the clan,children Sandy Daniels, Susie Perry, Sally, Ted and their spouses,who are championing a key PAC tenant, the Pacific Symphony. “In the musical realm, they’re more involved. It’s their love,” says President John Forsyte. Family members hang around the orchestra and cut checks. Hal was a singer, his late widow Jeannette was a cellist and pianist, son-in-law John Daniels is a trombonist. Sandy is a flutist (and a perennial star of the CHOC Follies). The Hal and Jeannette Segerstrom Foundation earlier this year pledged $5 million. It’s the biggest of several big gifts expected to kick off an ambitious fund-raising drive as the orchestra gears up for its move next September to the new concert hall. (The hall bears the name of Uncle Henry and his late wife Renee.) The Danielses pledged a $750,000 lead gift for the symphony’s first European tour next March, and spent tens of thousands on instruments that are expected to sound better with the new hall’s acoustics. The purchases include three rotary-valve trumpets that musical director Carl St. Clair hand-picked in Germany and a French Lupot violin …
EE RR is in Baseball Heaven with his hometown White Sox and adopted Angels in the AL championship series. Last week he was cheering both sides and wearing a Sox cap in Angel red. For an obvious reason, the Insider wishes Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle had allowed his predecessor Tom Daly to place the baseball bet with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. And speaking of Chicago and OC, the opening of the Portillo’s restaurant in Buena Park had Windy City natives-turned-Angelinos Jim Belushi and George Wendt (Norm on “Cheers”), blues music, mobster and celebrity look-alikes, lots of high-caloric food,everything except the signature hot dogs. “I didn’t like the buns. They were dry, too many seeds, not at all what we ordered,” Dick Portillo said. Which should answer any questions of how serious the Chicago restaurateur is about quality control. Portillo immediately dispatched two freezer trucks from the Midwest with the right buns …
The power of incumbency and swing music: Pringle’s fund-raising concert at Downtown Disney’s House of Blues featuring Big Bad Voodoo Daddy raised $313,000, more than in his entire mayoral campaign of 2002 …
Gen. William and Willa Dean Lyon host “an intimate dinner” ($25,000 per couple) with Gov. Arnold and comedian Dennis Miller at their Coto de Caza home Oct. 26 …
A high tea with Fifi Chao went for $8,000. Details in her Nov. 7 column …
This house holds that OC will remain a hotbed for tech innovation. Pete Weitzner and EE RR say aye, Symbol Technologies’ Mark Steele and Allergan’s John Gibson say nay at the British American Business Council’s British-style dinner debate Tuesday. Call (949) 472-2221.
