ULLI REINER, a five-time nominated Grammy Education Award finalist since 2016 and a top ten Finalist for 2017, Ms. Reiner is the epitome of music. Music is her life as an educator, conductor and violinist. She was the Orchestra Director for the Poway Unified School District since 1983. Ms. Reiner is an adjunct faculty member of Palomar College, Concertmaster Emeritus of the Palomar Symphony Orchestra for 30 years, founder, Orchestra Manager and Concertmaster of the PUSD Adult School Poway Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Poway Symphonette.  Ms. Reiner is also Artistic Director Emeritus and co-founder of the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra String program and formerly conductor and co-founder of the Civic Youth Orchestra-Intermediate String Orchestra and Chamber String ensembles.  She was the founder and Orchestra Director of the Poway High School Symphony and has taught orchestra at Mt. Carmel High School, Black Mountain Middle School, Mesa Verde Middle School, and Meadowbrook Middle School.  She was most recently the Orchestra Director at Bernardo Heights Middle School, Twin Peaks Middle School, and was also the instructor for the Music Appreciation classes offered to non-music students.  Ms. Reiner is currently the Orchestra Director at St. Michael's Catholic School in Poway.

 

A graduate of the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music, as a full scholarship recipient, she received a Bachelor of Music Education degree with emphasis in violin and viola performance and went on to graduate study at San Diego State University as first violinist with the Graduate String Quartet in residence, the University of Southern California, and the University of San Diego, having worked towards three master’s degrees in music education, Suzuki violin and violin performance.  Her violin and viola teachers have included Melvin Ritter-Concert Artist, Tiberius Klausner-former pupil of Ivan Galamian of Juilliard, Yukiko Kamei-Assistant to Jascha Heifetz at USC, Noumi Fisher-MGM recording artist, Milton Thomas-Professor of Viola at USC and her father, Rudolf Reiner.  She is also a direct descendent of the great conductor, Fritz Reiner.

 

Her musical studies began at the age of 3 1/2 starting with the cornet and then the accordion at the age of 5 with her father as her teacher who attended the Bruckner Conservatory of Music in Linz, Austria.  She played the trumpet in both her elementary and junior high school music programs.  She also played trumpet with her family church brass ensemble all throughout college.  Her violin studies began at the age of 11 also with her father as her first teacher.

 

As a professional violinist, she has performed with the San Diego Symphony, San Diego Opera, Starlight Opera, San Diego Chamber Orchestra, St. Louis Municipal Opera, the St. Louis Philharmonic, and the Alexandria String Quartet.  As a certified private instructor of Suzuki and traditional violin, her students have won numerous awards and scholarships leading to professional careers in music. She has performed under conductors Leonard Slatkin, Alexis Hauser, David Atherton, Peter Eros, and Walter Susskind to name a few.  She has also enjoyed performing in the entertainment industry under such great artists as Andy Williams, Henry Mancini, Johnny Matthias, Angela Landsbury, Carol Channing, Yul Brynner, Lauren Bacall, Vincent Price and Zero Mostel among many other top performers.  She has also worked in the recording industry having made commercials for both local and national companies and is an orchestra contractor for several conductors in the San Diego area.

 

Ms. Reiner is a member of the Suzuki Association of the Americas, Suzuki Association of San Diego, served on the Board of Directors of the American String Teachers Association is currently the President of the ASTA San Diego section and has adjudicated for the Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association, Grossmont College, MTA of California, is a judge for The American Prize and for the Philharmonic Society of Orange County.  She hosted and founded the PUSD Middle School Orchestra Festival with such distinguished guest adjudicators; Jung-Ho Pak Artistic Director of the Cape Cod Symphony and Interlochen School of the Arts, Dana Zimbric, Music Director of the California Chamber Orchestra, Jeff Edmuns, Music Director of the San Diego Youth Symphony and Sameer Patel, Associate Conductor of the San Diego Symphony.   She also founded and hosted the annual PUSD String Solo/Ensemble Festival.  She was recognized in 1991 and again in 1993 by Outstanding Young Women of America and in 2000 was elected to the prestigious Who's Who of American Teachers.  Since 1995 she has led successful international concert tours of Salzburg, Vienna, London, and Paris conducting the Civic Youth Orchestra Chamber Strings and her "Mostly Mozart Orchestra" comprised of students from the Poway Unified School District.  She was invited to conduct at the American String Teachers National Convention in Reno, Nevada in 2005 and also was the guest conductor for the San Diego Unified School District Honor Orchestra in the spring of 2005.  Her orchestras continue to be invited yearly to perform in international festivals around the globe.

 

Ms. Reiner has performed as a violin soloist with the Palomar Symphony, Poway Symphony, and Poway Symphonette and with the Maryland University Symphony Orchestra in St. Louis, Missouri.  In 2011 Ms. Reiner was appointed conductor of the Symphonic Strings ensemble with the San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory.  She also frequently performs in the SDYS Faculty Recitals held throughout the year. In the summer of 2015 she traveled with the San Diego Youth Symphony on their performance tour of China. Her PUSD Adult School Poway Symphonette performed at the Advent Festival in Vienna having performed at the Vienna City Hall, St. Stephan's Cathedral, St. Peter's Cathedral and the Melk Monastery.  She traveled to China with her Poway Symphonette in 2016 and performed solos in Beijing, Xian and Shanghai.  In the summer of 2017 she traveled with students from her PUSD schools where they performed in three cities in China and for area schools.  In both the summers of 2018 and 2019 her Poway Symphonette was invited to perform at the prestigious Cantus Festival at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. The Poway Symphonette will return by invitiation to perform at the Cantus Festival in the summer of 2022 and 2023 as the "Orchestra in Residence" for the festival. 

 

Ms. Reiner serves on several boards in advocating music education and music performances in the community.  She serves on the Rancho Bernardo Friends of the Library-Discovery Series board in bringing performances to the library throughout the year for student and amateur performers.  She hosted a workshop at Bernardo Heights Middle School in 2015 for American composer and fiddler, Mark O'Connor. Ms. Reiner is certified in books one-four of the O’Connor American Music Method and currently serves on the faculty of the O’Connor Summer Workshops held in New York City and in Charlotte, North Carolina since 2016.

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Ms. Reiner was a guest conductor for the April 2017 California Music Educators Association’s Honor Orchestra Concert held at USD.  She is currently a music consultant for three university/prep schools for Heifei Meicheng International Education School, Global Elite Education and the Tshinghua University High School all of which are located in both Beijing and Shanghai, China. She serves on the faculty of the Global Elite University at UCSD promoting international travel and education to high school students. Ms. Reiner is also currently the Orchestra Director at St. Michael's Catholic School in Poway, California.

 

Ms Reiner was also a consultant working with the founder of the San Diego Kids College in a startup string program for the San Marcos School District.  She collaborated with the Raptor Resource Project Director in the Midwest for an original composition for solo violin and orchestra representing the Decorah, Iowa bald eagle family with composer Dr. Madelyn Byrne of Palomar College.  A special performance of the spring portion of the concerto was co-produced by Ms. Reiner and dedicated to the Raptor Resource Project Director and biologist, Robert Anderson, who passed away in the summer of 2016. In the spring of 2018 the concerto was once again re-dedicated to the adult male bald eagle that perished after a winter snow storm.  This was co-produced with a slide presentation by Ms. Reiner as well.

 

Ms. Reiner received top honors as an educator by the American Prize Music Award in 2018 and since 2017 her middle school orchestras and PUSD Adult School Symphonette have received finalist status. She also received finalist status in 2019 for her performance as a violin soloist in the Decorah Bald Eagle Violin Concerto which was dedicated to the male bald eagle that perished in April of 2018. The slide presentation was produced by Ms. Reiner.  Ms. Reiner now serves as an adjudicator for the American Prize Music organization.

 

In addition to her music Ms. Reiner is active in community volunteer work. She is active in wildlife preservation, photography of nature and holds a student pilot's license flying Piper Cherokee planes.  She is a member of Woman of Aviation and Golden State Aviation in El Cajon, California.  She is also a volunteer for Project Wildlife and a member of several non-profit wildlife organizations across the country and globe.