Tijuana Orchestra to Back Visiting Ballet in S.D. : Music: With the San Diego Symphony unavailable, the sponsor of the San Francisco troupe’s week-long concert series goes south of the border to find musical accompaniment.

For its San Diego debut, the International Symphony of Tijuana will accompany the San Francisco Ballet’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty” at the Civic Theatre Oct. 2 and 3. The announcement was made Thursday by the San Diego Foundation for the Performing Arts, local sponsor of the San Francisco Ballet’s week-long residency, and was hailed as an event of binational cooperation.

But the pairing of a visiting ballet of national prominence with a fledgling orchestra few San Diegans have heard is actually an act of expediency more than of multicultural enlightenment.

“When we were planning to bring the San Francisco Ballet down for these concerts, our first thought was to call the San Diego Symphony,” said Fred Colby, executive director of the Foundation for the Performing Arts. “Unfortunately, our concerts fell in the same week as the opening of the symphony’s fall season.”

Changing the dates of the ballet company’s San Diego visit was not an option, because the ballet was already locked into a fall tour that included performances in Washington, Minneapolis and Honolulu, Colby said. If the San Diego presenter had given up their October dates--San Diego will be the first stop on the San Francisco company’s tour--the city would have gone without a visit from artistic director Helgi Tomasson’s noted company.

The fact that the San Francisco Ballet will perform the world premier of choreographer Glenn Tetley’s ballet “Tagore” as the company’s second program, Oct. 5 and 6, made keeping the opening dates very important. Set to the music of Alexander Zemlinsky’s “Lyric” Symphony, the unveiling of “Tagore” is an event Colby was eager to offer to his subscribers.

Yet Colby said that the foundation deliberately avoided putting together a pick-up orchestra for the San Francisco Ballet.

“We were particularly sensitive to the disparaging remarks made about the pick-up orchestra used for the visiting Bolshoi Ballet, so we wanted to tie in with an existing orchestra. There were only three options: San Diego Chamber Orchestra, San Diego Opera Orchestra, and the Tijuana Symphony.”

After negotiating with each orchestra, Colby and his foundation opted for the Tijuana Symphony’s contract bid of just under $70,000. Bringing the San Francisco Ballet for its four Civic Theatre performances will cost the foundation $140,000, of which only 50% can be earned from ticket sales.

“The cost of the orchestra is still $10,000 over our budget,” Colby explained, “but the real advantage of using the Tijuana Symphony is that we can afford four rehearsals for each ballet program. If we had used the San Diego Symphony, for example, we would have had to settle for an orchestra with fewer players and had fewer rehearsals.”

Under the direction of its founder, Edmundo Diaz del Campo, the Tijuana Symphony made its debut a year ago at the Tijuana Cultural Center and played a total of four concerts its first year. Diaz del Campo emphasized, however, that he had no intention of underbidding local orchestras. The contract was negotiated with the Musicians Union, Local 325, and follows their wage requirements.

“We wanted to be in good standing with the union,” he explained. “Since we are based in Tijuana, we could have come over as a guest orchestra with even lower rates. But especially since most of our players live on the American side of the border, we wanted to comply with the San Diego musicians’ union.”

Diaz del Campo will not be on the podium for his orchestra’s San Diego debut, however. Denis de Coteau, the San Francisco Ballet’s music director and resident conductor, will conduct all of the Civic Theatre performances. He will bring with him his own concertmaster, keyboard players, and the two singers needed in the Zemlinsky score.