The Sound of Music

A homeschooling mom at art school clued me in to an educational series presented by our somewhat local symphony orchestra. It was a fairly confusing process, filling out info on one website (supposedly waiting a week to see if there were seats when notified by mail), receiving half a message about how we needed to call the truly local venue directly, discovering that every house was a full house, and finally squeezing five seats into the performance we hoped to attend in the first place . . . bonus . . . instead of it costing an already small fee per person, the performance was free!

We snuck in amongst a group of short people (second graders, I'm guessing?) and ended up on the main floor in the front row! Granted that's a little close for getting the scope of things, but the sound quality was magnificent. There is something so soul soothing about strings, winds, drums, brass and the rest right there in the room with you. My heart hasn't felt that settled in a while!

Plus, the educational program that went along with the performance was not only interesting and funny, but pretty interactive. I suppose you have to do quite a bit of song and dance to get hundreds of kids from the TV/Video game age to pay attention and connect with the show (and yes, there was a video screen :), but what fun to see them literally bouncing in their seats, unable to stop from "feeling the groove" of the music. I love that! Of course our own little Mister was right there caught up in the joy of it all; huge smiles on all four faces!

For the last bit, the conductor brought four children on stage to learn to conduct. The first little mite of a girl (she reminded me of niecey G :), he picked up and stood in front of the orchestra. When she began to conduct, that girl beamed rays of sunshine from her eyes! I can only imagine the story she told her mom when she got home; she'll never forget that experience!

One thing I'd mentioned to the kids, since we were first in--we'd be last out. But when the guy in the suit came on stage he said, "We're going to dismiss in an orderly fashion. Could the "blank" school please prepare to go." Well, that was the five of us standing at his shoe tips. He looked a little confused when a huge section of the auditorium did NOT start scrambling for coats and hats :) First in, first out!

Interesting thing about B, while waiting, the din of the voices was driving him crazy! I didn't realize that crush of sound plus waiting was super uncomfortable for him. Duly noted.

I was impressed that our kids recognized so many of the songs that were played . . . and I also liked that the performance included having the kids vote for what emotion the song was evoking. I think it's important to recognize how strongly sound and music can affect your mood. Might as well learn now and try to untangle the emotions that movies and commercials often try to evoke (that aren't always good or necessary).

Wow, I got a little off track there, but back to topic . . . three cheers for the orchestra!! Oh, and the final song was "In the Jungle" or is it "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" ? and all the kids sang "A-weem-oh-way" along with the melody. So.much.fun!