>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

FIDDLING WITH THE VIOLIN:Ivy Kerns, 17, of Haines began playing the fiddle when she was 8, and has spent the ensuing years working on both fiddle and violin techniques. She has a solo Saturday with the Grande Ronde Symphony Orchestra. (Staff photo/S. JOHN COLLINS).

Ivy Kerns nestles the fiddle against her chin, and hovers the bow above the strings.

She starts to play, the bow becoming a blur as it flies across the fiddle in a frenzy of notes that make your heart race and your toes tap the floor.

She has played the fiddle since she was 8, when she plucked out "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" on a beat-up violin refurbished by her eldest brother.

"When I started, that's all I wanted to do," says Kerns, 17.

This weekend, though, she'll trade lively bluegrass music for something a little more fitting for a performance with the Grande Ronde Symphony Orchestra.

The orchestra will perform at 7:30 p.m. Friday in McKenzie Theatre at Eastern Oregon University, and at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Baker High School, 2500 E St.

Tickets — $10, $8 seniors and $5 students — are available at Sunflower Books, the EOU Bookstore, Betty's Books and at the door.

This Concerto Aria Spring Fest includes pieces from a variety of composers, including Glinka, Rachmaninoff, Bizet, Donizetti, Mozart, Bartok, Corelli and Rossini.

"The concert will be a festival, composed of our most promising talent from the area, and very popular works which have been suggested to us by the public and orchestra members as a possibility to be adopted as a signature piece for the orchestra," said conductor Leandro Espinosa.

A grant from the Oregon Arts Commission is funding the symphony trip to Baker City.

The concerts will consist of 10 pieces and feature five soloists: Amanda Tullis and Ivy Kerns, violin; Adam Tracy, baritone; Catherine Olson, soprano, and Keil Fauske, tenor.

The 50-piece orchestra consists of volunteer musicians from throughout Eastern Oregon who rehearse in La Grande every Wednesday evening. The symphony members are about half adults and half young people.

The Grande Ronde Youth Orchestra is also connected to the symphony, and some youngsters play in both orchestras.

"Although both orchestras are educational, the difference is that the adult and university orchestra works more under pressure. This means performing more different programs with very limited rehearsal time, while the youth orchestra's rehearsals are focused into providing and solidifying good technical bases in our youth," Espinosa said. "Some of the members of our university and community orchestra regularly rotate to help us with the youth one, and vice versa."

Season tickets for the symphony are $30 adults, $24 seniors, $15 students and $100 for a family. For more information, call Lorna Spain at 963-9066.