SAN DIEGO COUNTY : Final Weekend of Arts Festival Full of Activity

The final weekend of the Soviet arts festival includes a symphonic world premiere, the final performances of a theatrical world premiere and a free celebration at Seaport Village capped by a fireworks display.

Tonight through Sunday at Symphony Hall, the San Diego Symphony and the 17-piece Soloists of Leningrad will perform the world premiere of a work commissioned for the festival. American composer Joseph Schwantner’s “. . .long before the winds--” is based on the poetry of Swedish playwright Per Lagerkvist.

Schwantner, a faculty member of the Eastman School of Music, won the Pulitzer Prize in music in 1979 and was composer in residence for the St. Louis Symphony from 1982-85.

Performances are at 8 p.m. today and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday. The program also includes the U.S. premiere of “Brooklynsky Bridge” by Vladimir Tarnopolsky, as well as works by J. S. Bach, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky.

This weekend also marks the final performances of “Slingshot” at the San Diego Repertory Theater. The new play, by Soviet playwright Nikolai Kolyada and directed by Roman Viktyuk, is a frank, emotional work about the evolution of a relationship between a crippled dock worker and a teen-age boy. Performances are at 8 p.m. today and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday.

Saturday at Seaport Village, the adult and children Georgian folk dancers will make their final appearances at a free celebration beginning at 2 p.m. Performers from the Moscow Circus will also be on hand, and the celebration will conclude with a fireworks display at 5:30 p.m.

The Tbilisi State Marionette Theatre wraps up its inaugural U.S. appearance with sold-out performances tonight and Saturday at the Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theater. A special benefit performance has been added Saturday at 5 p.m., with proceeds going to local agencies that work with the homeless and to victims of the Bay Area earthquake. Tickets for that are also sold out.

The Old Globe’s presentation of “Brothers and Sisters” by the Maly Theatre continues through Nov. 19. Tickets for this weekend’s performances are scarce, but tickets remain for weekday shows next week.

The Georgian Film Festival sponsored by the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art and the San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts continues with a screening tonight of Bidzina Rachvelishvili’s “Loma: A Forgotten Friend” and will conclude with Saturday’s showing of Nana Jorjadze’s “My English Grandfather.” The directors will attend the screenings at 7:30 p.m.

Most of the festival exhibitions extend beyond Sunday. The exception is the exhibit of Soviet and American children’s art, which closes Sunday at the Museum of San Diego History.

The festival’s most popular attraction, the exhibit of Faberge eggs at the San Diego Museum of Art, continues through Jan. 7.