A final bow with the Youth Symphony ; Conductor and teacher Cole has touched the lives of many children in his 31-year career

Thousands of young kids have made music for the first time with Walter Cole, the inspiring conductor and teacher who founded the Seattle Youth Symphony's Classical and Symphonette training orchestras, as well as its "Endangered Instruments" program and the summer Marrowstone-in-the-City Festival.

Tonight, at 7 p.m. in Ballard High School, Cole will close a 31-year era with the Youth Symphony when he conducts the Classical Orchestra in Brahms' Hungarian Dances. A reception honoring Cole will follow the concert (concert tickets are $5, at the door only).

But the performance tonight is a finale that is also an overture. He's taking the 62 young musicians (ages 10-17) on one last hurrah: a tour of Austria and Hungary that will have them celebrating the Fourth of July in an American Embassy fete in Budapest. The trip will be the first international tour in the 58-year history of the Seattle Youth Symphony. The young musicians also will play a joint concert with Polish and Hungarian youth orchestras and perform in Seattle's sister city of Pecs (pronounced "pesh"), which invited them to join in celebrations of the 1,000-year anniversary of Hungary.

Cole's long history here started when the Illinois-born French horn player hit the road in the Air Force Band during the Korean War era. He ended up in Tacoma, playing in an orchestra there under the baton of the late, great Dr. Stanley Chapple (that's also where Cole met his wife, Fran, an oboist). After finishing bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Washington, Cole played for a while in the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, but his teaching career (24 years at Eckstein Middle School) was his real love.

"I've seen a lot of wonderful kids," Cole recalls, "and you really remember them and how they develop. We have an old saying that goes, `It ain't the fish, it's the fishing.' That process of watching and helping kids grow up, musically and in other ways, is just great."

Joining the Seattle Youth Symphony organization in 1969, Cole initially started "just to help out" with one of the Youth Symphony's training ensembles, the Little Symphony, in the era of legendary conductor Vilem Sokol. Cole stayed on to lead - and found - other training orchestras for the organization, which has grown and changed to its current five-orchestra configuration with Jonathan Shames as music director.

The five orchestras (Youth, Junior, Classical, Debut and Symphonette) include more younger players and fewer older ones; the latter change is at least partly due to the departure of the many University of Washington students who now are finding an artistic outlet in the much-improved University Symphony ("Peter Eros does a great job with them at the UW," Cole says).

The summer Marrowstone Festival has moved away from its former role of providing a summer home to Youth Symphony and other local students, and now attracts music students from all over the country. Cole acknowledges that this change in focus may disappoint local youngsters, but adds: "Kids headed toward performance (as a career) have to realize there are a lot of people out there. The sooner they get their feet wet in that kind of competitive atmosphere, the better."

Cole developed the Marrowstone-in-the-City program to provide training for younger kids who aren't yet ready to go away for three weeks to the main festival. The city program has orchestral and chamber-music programs in the daytime for kids 7-13, and Cole says he is "really happy that it has proved so successful. We have high-school interns who help the faculty and also rehearse and perform for the kids. Seeing successful older students who are only a few years further along than our kids makes a big impression on the youngsters."

After all these years (and Cole is still coaching and teaching part time in the Northshore District), what are the secrets of Cole's success?

"Retain your sense of humor," he says.

"Be patient; know when to back off and relax when kids get frustrated. Be sure you address every section in the orchestra in every rehearsal. Don't talk too much, especially in the first rehearsals; wait for later on, and bring in a few pertinent facts at a time. Remember that your first job is not to tell them the entire history of music, but just how to play that B-flat.

"And when kids tell you, `I can't play that,' never accept it. Tell them it's not true. The only thing that's true is `I can't play that . . . yet.' "

---------------------------

Walter Cole and the Seattle Youth Symphony Classical Orchestra, 7 tonight, Ballard High School, 1418 N.W. 65th St., Seattle ($5; 206-362-2300).