Stepping forward: Dara Morales has no desire to be a diva. But she will have her turn in the spotlight Wednesday evening. Morales, the Utah Symphony's principal second violinist for just over a year, will solo in Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3 as this year's Deer Valley Music Festival opens its first full week.

"It's a small chance to come out and express my own personality instead of always being in the supportive role," she said.

That supporting role suits her fine most of the time. "As principal second, I have a lot of natural attributes that help me do the job well," she said. "I'm very patient and have a work ethic that's pretty strong." (Those traits also come in handy with her violin, an 1877 model by French makers Gand & Bernardel that she said is "very powerful" and "a bit temperamental to control.")

Mozart wrote his five violin concertos in his late teens, while employed as concertmaster in the Archbishop of Salzburg's court orchestra. Morales pointed out he didn't write so much for violin after leaving that job. The concertos have "a very youthful innocence, charm and sweetness and lots of humor," she said. She has known this particular one since she was 13.

Morales, a native of Lancaster County, Pa., started studying violin when she was 5 and realized she "might be sort of good" when she placed third in a regional secondary-school orchestra audition as a seventh-grader.

She entered the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music intending to major in music education and performance, but a professor quickly convinced her she had a good shot at a performing career. She spent five years in Puerto Rico, playing in the orchestra there and teaching at the conservatory of music, before winning the Utah job. Her husband of five years, cellist Jesœs Morales, is a regular substitute with the Utah Symphony; they met in graduate school in Cincinnati and played in a string quartet together.

Morales, 30, dabbled in oboe and trombone as a teen but is glad she stuck with violin. "I enjoy the range and, of course, the repertoire," she said. "The violin is one of the least limited instruments in terms of having to find repertoire."

More Muir in the mountains: The Muir String Quartet has been a fixture in the canyons above Salt Lake City for 15 years, doing residencies under various auspices. The quartet hopes its latest arrangement, as resident chamber ensemble of the Deer Valley Music Festival, is a keeper.

"We're ecstatic with our relationship with Utah Symphony & Opera and the Deer Valley Festival," cellist Mike Reynolds said. "Last year, we had the best attendance we've ever had. . . . I'm very impressed with the general level of audience support, not only for our concerts. They've developed an astoundingly fast audience up here."

Reynolds and violinist Peter Zazofsky will join Highland String Quartet violinist Patrick Doane, Tin Alley String Quartet violist Justin Williams and pianist Keith Lockhart in the Dvorak Piano Quintet this morning at a salon brunch. (Lockhart also is music director of the Utah Symphony.) The Highland and Tin Alley are the scholarship quartets this summer in the Muir's long-running mentoring program; composers Sergei Tcherepnin and Nathan Williamson are in a parallel program with composer-in-residence Joan Tower.

Violinist Lucia Lin and violist Steve Ansell will join Reynolds and Zazofsky Thursday in Park City's St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church. On the program are Mozart's String Quartet in G Major (K. 387), Beethoven's Opus 131 Quartet and the Debussy String Quartet, which Reynolds called "probably the most revolutionary work of its time -- there's nothing like it before or since."

The quartet will present a second concert Aug. 4 with music of Tower, Fritz Kreisler and Beethoven.

Meyers, the linebacker? The last time violinist Anne Akiko Meyers collaborated with conductor Keith Lockhart, there was a live audience of 10,000 in the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra's Museum Square in Amsterdam, and thousands more watched on television or the Internet. Meyers looks forward to the reunion, even if the audience is smaller.

The violinist also has happy memories of her most recent Utah appearance, a recital in the University of Utah's Libby Gardner Concert Hall last fall, and can't wait to share the other side of her musicianship with audiences here.

Recitals and concerto dates are "kind of like comparing apples and oranges," she said in a phone interview from Seattle, where she is playing chamber music. "A recital is such an intimate experience for the audience and performers . . . whereas a concerto is really kind of going out like a linebacker, really trying to have a good game."

She joked that she has "a long and arduous history" with Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1, which she will play Friday. It was featured on her first recording, and "I played it so much I had to give it a break," she said. "When I returned to it several years after shelving it, I realized, wow, what a beautiful, absolutely romantic, gorgeous vehicle it was for a performer. It has all the elements that make a great concerto. . . . It has fireworks, and absolutely just melodic lyrical passages in the second movement . . . [and] a very exciting ending."

Meyers also is a fan of contemporary music; she recently recorded Joseph Schwantner's "Angelfire," which was written for her, and soon will tour with fiddler-violinist-composer Mark O'Connor, playing his double concerto and new string quartet.

Meyers was relieved to learn that temperatures at Deer Valley are several degrees lower than in the valley below. She said she recently played an outdoor festival where "it was about 100 degrees onstage. I should have gone out in a bikini."

Broadway goes Hollywood: The road from Hollywood to Broadway is a two-way street, and the Utah Symphony will travel it in a pops concert Saturday. Titled "From Hollywood to Broadway," the program is filled with tunes from musicals that were hits on the Great White Way and the silver screen.

The first half features songs from musicals that began on film: "Singin' in the Rain," "State Fair," "Thoroughly Modern Millie," "The Wizard of Oz." The tables turn after intermission, with songs that started life onstage: "The Music Man," "West Side Story," "Cabaret," "The Phantom of the Opera."

Susan Egan, one of the three featured singers, has starred in many of those musicals, including "State Fair," "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "Cabaret." She is perhaps best-known as the original Belle in the Broadway version of "Disney's Beauty and the Beast," and Saturday's concert includes "Be Our Guest" from that show. Frequent collaborators Michael Maguire and Doug LaBrecque will join her; Jerry Steichen conducts the Utah Symphony.

Egan has two favorite roles, she said in a phone interview from Los Angeles, where she lives with her new husband, Improv comedy clubs owner Robert Hartmann. "I love Belle -- I love her impact on girls. But as an actress, I love Sally Bowles in 'Cabaret.' " This week at Deer Valley

* A salon evening with musicians from the Park City International Music Festival, Tuesday at 7 p.m. in a Deer Valley area home. Tickets are $100; to get on the invite list, call Kristin at 801-869-9012.

* Violinist Dara Morales, music director Keith Lockhart and the Utah Symphony Chamber Orchestra play Mozart's Symphony No. 28 and Violin Concerto No. 3 and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 1, Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in Park City's St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church. Tickets are $20; $12 for students.

* The Muir String Quartet plays music of Mozart, Debussy and Beethoven, Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in St. Mary's. Tickets are $20; $12 for students.

* Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers joins Lockhart and the full orchestra to play the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1, Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the amphitheater at Deer Valley Resort. Also on the program are Copland's "Outdoor" Overture and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4. Tickets are $20 on the lawn and $44 reserved; $12 for students; $65 for families.

* Broadway singers Susan Egan, Doug LaBrecque and Michael Maguire join the orchestra and conductor Gerald Steichen in tunes from musicals that have played on the Broadway stage and the silver screen, Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Deer Valley. Tickets are $24 on the lawn and $48 reserved; $12 for students; $75 for families.

* The Highland and Tin Alley string quartets, studying with the Muir during its annual residency, will perform at a salon brunch July 31 at 11 a.m. in a Deer Valley area home. Tickets are $100; call Kristin at 801-869-9012.