Redlands Bowl Summer Festival Orchestra presents symphony concert

The Redlands Bowl Summer Festival Orchestra will make “A Toast to the Future” with their symphony concert on Tuesday, August 5, at 8:15 p.m. at the Redlands Bowl Summer Music Festival. Conductor Frank Fetta will lead members of the Redlands Symphony Orchestra in a salute to youth, both composer and performer.

With music by Beethoven, Mozart, and Mendelssohn, the concert will feature 15-year-old violinist Sean Lee, a 2002 winner in the Redlands Bowl Young Artists’ Auditions.

“Both Mozart and Mendelssohn were young virtuosi,” Fetta explained, “so having young Sean Lee perform will complement the music selections.”

Lee, who according to Fetta has worked with the renowned Itzhak Perlman, will perform Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, perhaps the best known of Mendelssohn’s works.

“I’ve worked with Lee several times,” said Fetta, “and I know he will be brilliantly prepared. He is the kind of young artist we’re trying to promote.”

Lee, currently studying on scholarship at the Colburn School with Robert Lipsett, has won numerous competitions and honors. He performs on a 1745 Panormo violin, on loan from the Mandell Collection of Southern California.

For the Mendelssohn concerto, which Fetta assures will be quite lavish, the orchestra will be the same size as for the Beethoven Seventh Symphony. Featuring a big string sound, the Seventh Symphony epitomizes the grand Classical orchestrations of the heyday of symphonic music.

Fetta explained that the symphonic orchestra became popular during the time of Haydn and Mozart when wealthy people commissioned composers to write pieces for party music. As opera became popular, orchestras began performing concerts in theaters beyond the castles and palaces. Through the era of Beethoven and Schumann, the orchestras grew to be bigger and well-established in theaters.

“To hear this glorious music in our magnificent setting should blow people away,” maintained Fetta. “We are so lucky to have the Redlands Bowl to showcase the wonderful art works of Beethoven and Mozart and Mendelssohn. To have a live symphonic experience is rare today.”

Fetta will open the concert with Mozart’s bright and animated Overture to “The Marriage of Figaro.” This will be the first time he has directed this well-known piece at the Redlands Bowl.

The symphony concert will be preceded at 7:20 by the Community Sing, led by Curtiss Allen, Sr. with Kim Hoeptner accompanying. Representatives from Christ the King Lutheran Church, Redlands Town & Gown, and the University of Redlands Alumni will serve as ushers, and Ellen Estilai, executive director of the Arts Council for San Bernardino County, will be the intermission speaker.

The Children’s Summer Festival Workshop will be held at 3:00 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2 W. Olive Ave in Redlands, and will feature a presentation by Mary Margaret Bawden of M&M’s Mary’s Magical Movement. The workshop is offered at no charge to children ages 5 to 12.

All events of the Redlands Bowl Summer Music Festival are presented without an admission charge, with a free-will offering collected at intermission.

The Redlands Bowl is located at 25 Grant Street in Redlands between Grant and Eureka Streets, just south of Brookside Avenue. For directions and more information, contact the office at 909/793-7316 or view the website at www.redlandsbowl.org