(no subject)

[rivka]

Yesterday I chaperoned Alex's nursery school class to a performance of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. My expectations were pretty low. It was a special concert aimed at children aged 6 and under, and the title of the show was "Goldilocks and Other Fairy Tales." I thought the kids would find it exciting to be at a concert and see orchestra instruments, but I wasn't anticipating any enjoyment for myself.

I was pleasantly surprised.

In the 45-minute program, there was only one piece that I considered to be musical pandering: a subset of the brass and percussion sections of the orchestra performed "Under the Sea," from the Disney movie The Little Mermaid. Otherwise, it was all real orchestral music: a dashing, exciting Rimsky-Korsakov piece called "The Snow Maiden," a piece from the Tchaikovsky ballet Sleeping Beauty and another from the the opera Hansel and Gretel, and "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Peer Gynt. There was a sort of a tone poem based on the fable "The Tortoise and the Hare" and accompanied by a storyteller, and a ballet of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" written by a modern composer whose name I didn't catch.

A pair of adult ballet dancers appeared during the Tchaikovsky piece, and students at the Baltimore School for the Arts performed the Goldilocks ballet. The bit from Hansel and Gretel was sung and danced. All in all, there was a nice mix of visual elements with purely symphonic experiences.

The program had a narrator, who used a brief and (I thought) very effective script. For "In the Hall of the Mountain King," in a few sentences she evoked a vivid picture of Peer Gynt tiptoeing into a cave, the goblins circling and creeping around him, and the mad final chase. Alex kept returning to that afterward, wanting to relate the story again and again. The narrator also deftly introduced basic orchestral and musical concepts without sounding like she was lecturing: tuning, the roles of the concertmaster and conductor, the definitions of "opera" and "ballet," and the idea of a musical motif. Before "The Tortoise and the Hare," she explained that the contrabassoon would play music for the tortoise and the clarinet would play for the hare, and had the musicians play a bar or two of each to help the children pick the motifs out later.

The entire row of Alex's 3- and 4-year-old classmates sat captivated throughout the concert. (The 4- and 5-year-olds sitting behind us were less rapt and more inclined to talk.) During "In the Hall of the Mountain King" I wound up with two little girls in my lap, but they thoroughly enjoyed the "scary" music.

But I really knew the concert had been a success that evening. Michael and Alex were together in the playroom, when Alex came running in and asked me to be their conductor. I came in and discovered that she had lined up all the chairs and couches from her dollhouse in rows. A tiny plastic animal was perched on each one. Alex and Michael were ready to make music by banging blocks together - they were only waiting for me to conduct. Michael told me afterward that she had organized the audience of animals completely of her own volition, telling him that "they came to watch some music." Yay.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's great. She obviously was pretty impressed.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

:):)

This is *wonderful*.

My dad was a violinist, never orchestra quality, but reasonably good. I took violin when I was small, and played the piano for many years. Every time there was a concert for children in the Bay Area, he'd take me and my sisters. He also took us to regular concerts but the children's concerts were, of course, the ones that got me seeing the music in my head; turned me on to Beethoven because of the stories that could be laced into the music; Made Mozart sing and taught me that if he could write such beautiful music when he was my age, kids didn't have to wait until they grew up to use and stretch their talents. And, yes, "The Hall of the Mountain King" was a staple of those programs.

I'm so glad she loved it so much. I don't know if she's quite ready for "Fantasia" yet - there are some reasonably scary parts, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" not being the least of them, but "Dance of the Hours" is hysterical and fun - but if you can get ahold of the original 1940 version and screen it (if, of course, you haven't got it already!), it is one of the cherished vehicles of my musical education.

I also got a lot of dance-around-the-house mileage from "Dance of the Hours". I think I drove my mother slightly nuts with it :).

[txobserver.livejournal.com]

My daughters loved these CDs and in fact still listen (they are both in their 20s):
Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales (they went to sleep with this lulling them on many, many nights, and still sometimes do from their ipods.)

Mr. Bach Comes to Call

Beethoven Lives Upstairs

Tchaikovsky Discovers America

They specially liked Beethoven from this series. I just ordered all of these to be sent to my older daughter who is a 2nd year kindergarten teacher. They are all available at Amazon.

[glinda-w.livejournal.com]

Nothing to add to what others have said, but I think this is wonderful.

My music-of-choice to dance around the house was a Boston Pops recording of the Nutcracker; I've still got the original vinyl. My mother was a fan of operetta, and my father played piano and violin, though rarely; I started organ lessons at age 7, and have been an addict of classical music always.

[lissamc.livejournal.com]

So cool! Live music can be absolutely magical. I'm glad there is such a good program for introducing the young ones to the joy.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

She wanted you to conduct! That's stupendous.

[guruwench.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is so nifty to read about!! One piece of classical music I remember fondly is the William Tell Overture, it being the theme from The Lone Ranger, of course.

I never had access to live music until I was much older than Alex, but when I did finally see a performance of some kind, I was hooked. :)

[selki.livejournal.com]

That was the coolest part of the story, to me!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Z and I used to play Peer Gynt, to that music, of course. He had to have a safeword -- well, safe musical phrase -- for if it got to scary, to change me back into me.

It's particularly good chase music for people who cannot run.