Poway Symphonette to preview China concert

Get a sneak peek of some of the music the Poway Symphonette will be performing on their Chinese concert tour.

The group will be performing a concert at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 30 at the Rancho Bernardo Library, 17110 Bernardo Center Drive. This concert is part of the Discovery Concert Series and is free and open to all ages.

The Poway Symphonette is a chamber orchestra that is run through the Poway Adult School, specializing in Baroque and classical music.

“It’s a Baroque ensemble, but everyone is a soloist,” said Ulli Reiner, artistic director of the Poway Symphonette as well as a performer in the group. “(Because a Baroque orchestra is so small) everyone is really responsible for being a soloist.”

They will be performing the “Concerto Grosso Opus 6, no. 9” by Corelli, “Prelude no. 1 in C major” by Bach, and “Concerto Grosso in D minor, no. 11, op. 3” by Vivaldi.

The orchestra will also perform the famous Chinese folk song “Jasmine Flower (Mo Li Hua)” for string orchestra, to conclude the concert. They will also close their concerts in China with this song.

The Chinese tour, which will be called “Taste of China,” will take 20 members of the Poway Symphonette to perform in concert halls in Beijing, Xian and Shanghai. The performers will be leaving for China in early July.

While in China, they will accompany a traditional Mongolian choir in performing.

“We’re really excited, especially to be invited and to accompany the Mongolian choir,” said Reiner in a press release.

Reiner said the orchestra would be playing a more complex set list in China, adding in “Concerto in G major” by Vivaldi, which will feature Reiner on solo violin; the “Brandenburg Concerto no. 5” by Bach, which will feature Dr. Ching Ming Cheng on piano and Jan Masur, owner of Ozzy’s Music in Poway as the solo flutist; and the “Decorah Bald Eagle Violin Concerto,” by Madelyn Byrne, a professor at Palomar College.

Reiner said the orchestra would be performing the “spring” section of the violin concerto, which has four sections focusing each on a season in the lives of a pair of mated bald eagles. The spring section represents the nurturing of the pair’s newly-hatched eaglets.

“I asked Madelyn Byrne if we could bring her spring section (to China) to represent America,” said Reiner. “I wanted to bring a tender, more diplomatic, more peaceful representation of America (to China).”

The group will spend 12 days touring China.

For more about the upcoming concert or the Poway Symphonette, visit home.earthlink.net/~ureiner/pcso.