LEONTYNE PRICE DUE IN SOUTHLAND

Soprano Leontyne Price will be appearing at the Orange County Performing Arts Center twice in October: with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and in a separate solo recital.

Nelly Walter, Price’s agent at Columbia Artists Management Inc., made the announcement Thursday.

At Price’s Oct. 1 concert, she will perform music by Richard Strauss, with Kurt Sanderling conducting the L.A. Philharmonic, Walter said. Price will sing Strauss’ “Four Last Songs,” written in 1948, and the final scene from Strauss’ 1905 opera “Salome,” according to Walter and a spokesperson for the Philharmonic. This engagement will be her only one with the Philharmonic during its 1986-87 season.

Ernest Fleischmann, Philharmonic executive director, said it will be the 59-year-old American soprano’s first appearance with the orchestra in at least 10 years.

Price has not yet decided on the program for the Oct. 4 recital, Walter said.

“Definite and signed,” is how Walter described Price’s contracts to appear at the Orange County Center. The center has not officially announced Price’s appearances, even though Elly Miller, also of the management firm, said the contracts have been signed “for months.”

The Orange County concert will be the first of more than a dozen in which Sanderling will conduct the L.A. Philharmonic during October and November, according to a spokesperson for the orchestra. Four of those will be in Orange County.

Sanderling, 73, was music director of the Leningrad Philharmonic from 1942 to 1960. He served as music director of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra in East Berlin from 1960 to 1978, and has been guest conducting since then.

On Sept. 3, Price will sing the “Salome” excerpt in a concert at Davies Hall in San Francisco, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the San Francisco Symphony. She will give another recital in San Francisco on Sept. 7 and will appear in Carmel on Oct. 7.

Price is scheduled to return to Southern California for a recital in Royce Hall at UCLA, May 10, 1987, Walter said.

Other programs that the Los Angeles Philharmonic will perform at the Center in six concerts scheduled during the 1986-1987 season have not been announced.