MUSIC CENTER REACHES ’86 FUND GOAL

The Music Center of Los Angeles County reached its goal of $9.5 million for the 1986 Unified Fund drive that ended June 30, center officials announced. The money, a 12% increase over funds raised in last year’s drive, will provide about one-third of the operating budgets of the center’s resident performing arts companies.

Corporate, private foundation and individual gifts amounted to nearly $4.1 million, center officials said. Volunteer support groups--including the Blue Ribbon, the Fraternity of Friends and Partners of the Music Center Unified Fund--raised another $3.3 million while last month’s Mercado festival raised more than $750,000.

The drive took an additional $1.35 million from the income of the nearly $35 million Music Center Foundation endowment.

Money raised in the 1986 drive is earmarked to benefit the Philharmonic, Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum, the Joffrey Ballet, the Music Center Opera Assn., the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Music Center Education Division. (The Center Theatre/Ahmanson Theatre and the Civic Light Opera are self-sustaining and do not receive money from the Unified Fund.)

Ticket sales provide almost 70% of the total budget requirements of the resident companies, the center said.

More than half of this year’s fund was contributed by corporations and private foundations, with a substantial increase in gifts from firms headquartered outside Los Angeles, the center said.