At the end of the California Philharmonic's evening performance in July with the Fab Four, a Beatles cover band, Victor Vener, music director, conductor and founder of the Philharmonic, joined the conga line in front of the stage as the band played "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da." Fans cheered as the jovial maestro rocked out along with thousands of other aging hippies. 

Since the Philharmonic's first season in 1997, Vener has used innovative programming to introduce audiences to orchestral music's wide range of styles. In Vener's selections for his "Basically Beatles" concert, the orchestra played a symphonic arrangement of four Beatles songs and then accompanied the cover band by playing the session music for songs like "All You Need is Love" and "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Vener challenged his audience, too, with the world premier of a symphony written by the Philharmonic's composer in residence. 

"What Cal Phil tries to do is play what I call really fine music, Vener says. "And that great music can be "All I need is love" or "Imagine" or that music can be Braham's 4th symphony. Great is great."

A gregarious historian who loves to educate his audiences as well as entertain them, Vener does his best to challenge what types of music should be played at a classical concert. He harkens back to the 18th and 19th centuries, when concerts were more varied than they are today.

"In concert programming in the 20th century the custom was to start with an overture, do a concerto, have an intermission, and do a symphony," Vener says. "And that was the basic classical formula. Sometimes it changed. But that was your basic formula."

But Vener says in earlier centuries pop music (like Strauss waltzes) was commonly performed at symphony concerts. 

"Somehow between the 1890s and 1920s there was a complete crossover into classical music being totally serious and not integrated with pop music as it had been in previous centuries. And it fragmented into its own little zone and because of that it got snotty, and people got bored with it."

Vener argues that the average person still wants to like classical music, as evidenced by the great success of classical music in film.

"The proof in the pudding is that the film industry is all 19th-century classical music," Vener says. "You go to "Lord of the Rings" and all you have is watered-down Richard Wagner. But people think that's the greatest thing since ever!"

The Cal Phil's performances this Saturday at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Sunday at the Disney Concert Hall are called "Movie Magic," and, proving Vener knows an audience favorite when he hears one, includes pieces from "Lord of the Rings." The maestro is including more classic pieces too, with selections from "Casablanca" and "Gone with the Wind."

Vener does the programming himself, which he has refined after more than 10 years leading the Cal Phil.

"I think I've gotten a little more eclectic," Vener says. "I think I've developed something I would call Cal Phil programming. Rather than doing a lot of easy-to-listen-to classical music, with some sort of generic popular music, I'm trying to do something different: Here's the world premiere of a symphony, that's real serious. Combined with the Beatles, which is not serious." 

Vener faces pressure as he works to design programs that will draw audiences during the current economic recession. The Cal Phil cancelled the remainder of its winter season in January and doesn't have plans to start thinking about bringing programming back until the close of the fiscal year at the end of September. The orchestra relies on donations to float the winter series.

"The summer can kind of pay for itself," Vener says. "The winter cannot. And without public contributions to underwrite the winter season we can't do a winter season. And promises were made to us of contributions that later didn't materialize because that institution itself was bankrupt or sold to someone else. Individuals who were writing personal checks to us had lost 40-60 percent of their savings -- in good situations."

Cal Phil receives about 70 percent of its income from ticket sales, which is actually helping the orchestra during these challenging times. 

"What's made Cal Phil a little stronger than other [orchestras] is we only need to bring in 30 percent from organizations," Vener says. "If we can sell tickets we can keep going. We still need donations to pick up old debt, but it's not quite as hard." 

Relying on the whims of a potentially fickle audience base does have its challenges, Vener says.

"We're addicted to ticket sales, so we have to keep pushing that. Because of our lack of non-earned income, it's incredibly important that we sell these large numbers of tickets. When we do a concert that draws 2,800 people instead of 5,000, that's a big problem. Our worst shows in the last 4-5 years are still drawing larger crowds than many fine orchestras do. But for us it isn't enough.

"I'm hoping people will lick their wounds and start to feel OK again. The key thing is that at this stage we need to get peoples' butts in seats."

The final set of shows, on Aug. 22 and 23, is likely to get those patrons the Cal Phil needs. Titled "Broadway's Best," the program includes songs from "Wicked," "Mama Mia" and "Hairspray," plus farcical operas "The Merry Widow" and "Die Fledermaus." 

With Victor Vener as maestro, surprises are guaranteed, too. 

"You've got to listen, you've got to pay attention, because there's always something being thrown at you," Vener says. "Why wait for the end of the concert for the encore; you're a good audience, why don't we stick something in right now? All this keeping people off balance, makes it fun and makes it exciting."

The California Philharmonic has four performances remaining in its summer season. Aug. 8 and 9: "Movie Magic." Aug. 22 and 23: "Broadway's Best."