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Lisa Sewell has a wish list, and she's checking off a big item this week.

As executive director of the Utah Arts Festival since August 2006, Sewell has been determined to book one musical act that hasn't performed at the festival since 2001 — years before she started running the show.

Sewell wanted the Utah Symphony. This year, it's happening.

To mark two birthdays — the festival's 40th year and the end of the orchestra's 75th-anniversary season — the Utah Symphony will perform Friday at 6 p.m. on UAF's Festival Stage. The performance will bring some classical grandeur to the state's largest arts event, which runs Thursday through next Sunday.

"Our 75th anniversary's been all about collaborations," said Jeff Counts, the orchestra's general manager. "The arts festival was a natural fit."

Getting the orchestra into Library Square has taken a years-long negotiation — with issues of scheduling, logistics and repertoire to be ironed out — between two of the state's arts powerhouses.

The first step in luring the orchestra to the festival was the stage.

The Festival Stage was a staple on Washington Square for years, playing host to jazz combos and dance troupes. But its dimensions — 28 feet by 35 feet, or 980 square feet — were too small for a full orchestra.

"From a production standpoint, we've had to make a lot of changes to what we're doing," said Steve "Doc" Floor, the festival's performing-arts coordinator.

The festival moved the Festival Stage off the Washington Square grass a few feet east to the asphalt of 200 East, between City Hall and the City Library. The new stage is bigger — 40 feet by 40 feet, or 1,600 square feet — and faces south, sending music toward the food vendors and the rest of the festival grounds.

Counts and representatives of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (another act on Sewell's wish list) checked out the new Festival Stage last year, Floor said.

Counts said the new stage had enough room for the orchestra. "We have to make some adjustments to our normal complement, but we do that all summer long," he said. "We're used to being adaptive."

His biggest concern is the June heat and its effect on the musicians and their instruments. He was assured that the trees lining Washington Square should provide enough late-afternoon shade.

"We want to make sure that everybody on the stage is comfortable," Counts said. "And these are very expensive instruments, and exposure to the sun is something we try to limit as much as possible."

Playing outdoors is always an adventure, said Rei Hotoda, the orchestra's associate conductor, who will conduct the festival performance.

"There can be logistical challenges, like the wind blowing our music, or bugs flying onto our pages and then we think they are extra notes on the page," she said. "Other than that, it's the most wonderful way to share our music with the community."

Counts said other production issues, like a drop-off area for the semi truck that carries the musicians' gear, will be sorted out once the stage is erected. "We have to get in and out of there pretty quickly," he said. "It's an intense day, for sure."

Getting the musicians to venues in Salt Lake County and Utah County is relatively painless, Counts said, since he doesn't have to book hotel rooms — as he did when the orchestra played Carnegie Hall earlier this year. For the festival, many musicians may park near Abravanel Hall and take public transit to Library Square, though riding TRAX may be easier for the flutists than for the bassists.

Scheduling the festival performance was complicated by the orchestra's busy summer schedule. Sewell wanted the Utah Symphony to perform on Thursday, the festival's first night, when admission is free — a 40th-anniversary gift to festivalgoers, made possible by the Utah Legislature.

But that Thursday, Counts said, is during the annual community celebration in Taylorsville. "We have a long-standing tradition of playing on the second-to-last night of the Taylorsville Dayzz celebration," he said. "We've been doing that forever. That was just something we couldn't move."

So the Arts Festival show was set for Friday, forcing Floor to reschedule the festival's traditional jazz night to Saturday.

Then there was the program. Hotoda, who programs all the community concerts, submitted a list of classical favorites — similar to Monday's program at the Gallivan Center and what the orchestra will play at the Sundance resort the Saturday after the festival performance.

Floor and Sewell wanted something more.

"They were initially going to do their summertime pops that they do everywhere," Sewell said, "I said, 'No, I didn't want that.' "

Floor was more blunt: "We don't want to hear another symphonic rendition of excerpts from 'Frozen.' "

Sewell said she told the orchestra, "Your next generation of symphonygoers is here. You should use this opportunity to highlight pieces that are going to be interesting, and capture their attention, and make them turn their heads and go, 'Whoa, what is that?' Not, 'Oh, boy, there's Sousa again.' "

Hotoda said she welcomed the festival's feedback. "They know their community," she said. "We would like to present ourselves in the best light, but also to present a collaborative effort into the programming. I think it's so vital for the success of the concert."

The revised program includes some classical tunes people know from movies: Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty" Waltz (used in Disney's "Sleeping Beauty"), Johann Strauss' "Blue Danube" Waltz (heard in "2001: A Space Odyssey") and Borodin's Polovtsian Dances (familiar as "Stranger in Paradise" from the musical "Kismet" and, Hotoda noted, used recently in an ad for an allergy medicine).

"There's often children dancing to 'The Blue Danube,' and I love seeing that," Hotoda said. "To see families dancing to 'The Blue Danube' outside is just so rewarding. … The music is actually moving them, it's influencing them. It's making them feel a different way and move a different way."

The centerpiece of the program is Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 — all four movements of it — "which is not typically played outdoors," Floor said.

"I love to program composers that are pillars of our symphonic repertoire that we would probably play and perform on our concert series at Abravanel Hall, but then bring it out to the community," Hotoda said.

Two more serious works, both from Russian composers, bookend the program: Mikhail Glinka's "Ruslan and Lyudmila" Overture, a fast-paced opener; and, as a finale, the fourth movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4.

Hotoda joined the orchestra in September, so this will be her first Utah Arts Festival.

"I love arts festivals," she said. "I go to them wherever I go when I'm traveling. I love to support local artists, and I'm thrilled that I get to conduct the Utah Symphony in this venue."

She said she is looking forward to being the orchestra's ambassador at the festival and at this summer's other community concerts, occasionally stepping off the podium to talk to the audience.

"The accessibility of it being in an outdoor setting, being in the arts festival, it's a little more bit relaxed than having to sit in the hall at Abravanel," she said. "Everyone is walking around, you don't have to dress up and you can enjoy the concert in your own way."

Sewell is thrilled with the orchestra's return to the Utah Arts Festival, though she didn't quite get everything she wanted.

"I tried to get them to play Metallica, but they just wouldn't bite," she joked.

Twitter: @moviecricket —

P Admission to the Utah Arts Festival is free on Thursday.

Adults • $12 per day, Friday through Sunday

Seniors (65 and older) • $6 per day, Friday through Sunday

Military • $6 per day, Friday through Sunday; ID required

Children (12 and younger) • Free

Three-day pass • $30

Where to buy tickets • Online at uaf.org or at the gates at Library Square and Washington Square