Next Sunday, the ever-inventive Barry Jekowsky opens the 12th season of his
California Symphony.  It's really *his*, a one-man effort, even as the
Berkeley Symphony belongs to Kent Nagano.

Always featuring a novelty or rarity, Jekowsky offers Henry Cowell's
Concerto No.  1 for Koto and Orchestra, with Miya Masaoka.  (Plus the
`Enigma' Variations and the Beethoven Second Symphony.)

Since Tilson Thomas' American summer festival three years ago, California
has once again become a hotbed of Cowell performances.

While Nagano's band is far and away the most adventurous of the state's
100-plus regional (read `small') orchestras, Jekowsky's organization is a
strong runner-up.

With a tiny budget and located in the growing but still small city of
Walnut Creek, Jekowsky -- former principal [and terrific] San Francisco
Symphony tympanist -- presents many contemporary, American, new and
commissioned works, proportionally far surpassing the orchestra's big
brothers.  He is also engaging very young artists as soloists at the very
beginning of their career; for example, the California Symphony provided
the West Coast debut for the then 9-year-old Sarah Chang.

If you're in Northern California and haven't discovered Jekowsky & Co.
yet, I highly recommend a trip to Walnut Creek.  I'd give a Web address
for the California Symphony, but haven't been able to find it yet.

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