Summer Sounds

Today we joined our friends the Baileys to bid farewell to summer and celebrate Labor Day.  We spent the evening It was a free evening at the Allen Civic Center for an evening of classics and pops ….everything from Beethoven to Phantom of the Opera! The Allen Philharmonic Orchestra & Symphony Chorus performed along with the Sweet Adelines. 

This program was sponsored by Allen Parks and Recreation where Gracie worked for the summer. The concert was one of several Summer Sounds Concert Series.

It was a great evening with sweet friends and wonderful music! 

I could send you away with joy and singing to the music of timbrels and harps Genesis 31:27

Living in Perfect Harmony

'From the sublime to the exhilarating, Mexican, South American, and Spanish composers have given us a rich diversity of beautiful music,' is what the Educational page of the website read.  The Dallas Symphony offers several performances each school year for student.  Our awesome home school group, PEACH, has attended these events since long before we joined in 2005.  Many of the performance are geared toward an Elementary age group in that the dialog between songs is simplistic in nature.  But the performances themselves are always first class.  Even as a parent of older kids I found myself amused at the younger kids in the audience 'conducting' the orchestra and the sheer wonder of such musical masters! 

Today's performance was a celebration of Cinco de Mayo, and for posterity's sake the repertoire included: Revueltas: Sensemayá; Marquez: Danzon No. 2; Piazzolla: Oblivion; Chavez: Sinfonia India; Villa Lobos: Aria from Bachianas brasileiras No. 5; and Defalla: "Ritual Fire Dance" from El amor brujo. I'm confident I could butcher the pronunciation of all of those pieces!  Fortunately Abigail's Spanish is much better and she read the program to me! 

Music is so powerful and it invokes so much emotion and expression.  I find myself awestruck when listening to such talent.  Even when my own kids play the piano or sing, I swell up with pride; I've often wondered if that's how God feels when he hears us.  Maybe that is why He commanded us to sing!  

After a magical morning of symphonies, Abigail and I stopped by Klyde Warren Park for lunch.  I promise this was a school related event.  After all we used this opportunity to observe people in their natural habitat, milling through the food trucks and interacting with others. 

As it is written:

“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles;

    I will sing the praises of your name.”

Romans 15:9 (2 Samuel 22:50 & Psalm 18:49)

Dallas Symphony's President John F. Kennedy Memorial Concert

Caleb and the other members of the Sixth Floor Museum's Youth Advisory Committee have prepared for the events surrounding the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination.  

Many of the kids participated in the JFK Day of Service at the the JFK Learning Center in Dallas.  This is the school where the kids have worked the last two years painting murals, and quotes on the wall.  Today they served organizing the library shelves and doing much needed service projects around the school.

Tonight several of the youth joined the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's Teen Council had a  rare opportunity to speak with Composer Conrad Tao before the Dallas Symphony's President John F. Kennedy Memorial Concert. Images of President Kennedy were shown above the ensemble in Dallas, playing Tao's, "The World if Very Different Now" at the Myerson Symphony Center.   Click HERE is the write up from the New York Times.  Click HERE to read the write up in the Dallas Morning News.

to them I will give within my temple and its walls

    a memorial and a name

    better than sons and daughters;

I will give them an everlasting name

    that will endure forever. Isaiah 56:5

Dallas Symphony Organ Odyssey

If I was asked what is the greatest perk of home schooling, I suppose I might be expected to pontificate on the benefits of a customized education; or perhaps quote statistics on the achievements of home schoolers; but honestly, the greatest perk is the field trips!   Seriously, we study the fine arts at the Dallas Symphony, Dallas Museum of Art or the Dallas Opera.  We study political science at the Sixth Floor Museum or the Bush Library.  

Today we attended the student performance Organ Odyssey at the Dallas Symphony.  The program featured music written specifically for the organ. The Dallas Symphony's organ has 4,535 pipes and each piece was performed in tandem with over 90 musicians.  

A couple of the highlights were Johann Strauss II's Space Odyssey and one of Papageno's songs from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Magic Flute, which we saw last year at the Dallas Opera.  

And all the people went up after him, playing pipes and rejoicing greatly, so that the ground shook with the sound.  I Kings 1:40

On Tour with the Dallas Sympony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today our homeschool group went “on tour” with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra as they introduced youth to music from all the countries the DSO has visited on their exciting journey through Europe.  There were great masterpieces of the orchestral repertoire from England, the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria.

 

Why didn’t you tell me, so I could send you away with joy
and singing to the music of timbrels and harps?

Genesis 31:27

Dallas Symphony Youth Concert

Caleb, Lisa & Abigail with her Koala Bear hat! 

2012-2013 Dallas Symphony Orchestra

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra has a great education program to introduce youth to the symphony.  Even a lot of adults think boring, stuffy when they think about attending a symphony.  But the youth program really shows the kids how fun and
entertaining and even inspiring the symphony can be.  In a digital world it is easy to forget how great live music s

Matthew, Richard & Caleb

ounds!  I love that feeling of the giant pipe organ vibrating the chairs!

 

Today's youth performance was entitled 'From Fantasia to Tubby the Tuba," it included music from Disney's classic film Fantasia.   There was a great performance of the character dances from The Nutcracker by students from Booker T. Washington High School in full costume.  We also enjoyed a reading of  Tubby the Tuba and his search for a way to "fit in" with the other instruments of the orchestra. 

 

We attended with sixty or so friends from PEACH, (Plano Educational Association of Christian Homeschoolers).  The field trips is one of my favorite reasons for home schooling!  

I will make them and the places surrounding my hill a blessing. I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. Ezekiel 34:26

Fort Worth Symphony at Bass Hall

Bass Performance Hall

Today we ventured out to Fort Worth for the Fort Worth Symphony’s Young Persons’ concert.  This year’s program featured Aaron Copland’s Suite from Appalachian Spring.  Today’s program focused on the process of collaboration between the composer, Aaron Copland; choreographer, Martha Graham; and set designer, Isamu Noguchi to make this performance come alive. 

There was a narrator who told the story of the ballet along with the full symphony orchestra.   Before the performance the kids learned the folk song “Simple Gifts”.  To perform along with the orchestra.  As the narrator told the story, image s from the book Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring were shown on the screen above the orchestra. 

One of the great benefits of field trips as homeschoolers is we are not seated on the floor with the masses.  Since we are usually smaller groups we get the benefit of great box seats!  Today’s performance was at Bass Hall and the  box seats had a coat room attached to each box, very posh!   The kids were quite impressed!

That each of them may eat and drink,

and find satisfaction in all their toil

—this is the gift of God.

Ecclesiastes 3:13

Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra

View from back of Meyerson

View from our seats!



Huge Pipe Organ!

Today was our first visit this school year to the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center located in the Downtown Dallas Arts District and home to the world-class Dallas Symphony Orchestra.  Today’s educational performance was ‘The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.’ 

This concert featured Benjamin Britten's beloved Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and other selections which highlight the families of instruments. Additional works will include Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man and music by Mussorgsky and Mendelssohn.

The Myereson was completely packed today with students from the Dallas magnet, private and home schools.  Usually we have been seated in one of the boxes on the 3^rd or 4^th level.  Today we were seated on the floor in the front row!

We all enjoy the symphony.  When the kids were younger we would listen to the ‘Say Hello to the Orchestra’ CD.  It gives children a quick overview of the four music groups and general concert terminology.  As my children got older we found Beethoven’s Wig, and still love them.  The CDs have taken great masterpieces and added silly lyrics to help children recognize the composer, the name of the piece etc.  Super fun, you can even visit their website and stream some of the songs!

David and all the Israelites were celebrating

 with all their might before God,

 with songs and with harps, lyres,

timbrels, cymbals and trumpets.

I Chronicles 13:8

DSO Fanfare!

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This year the Dallas Symphony started off their youth concert series with a program title 'Fanfare!'. It was a look a various brass instruments and difference in the acoustical quality of coiled and uncoiled instruments. The orchestra also demonstrated antiphonal music.

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Fanfare pieces included works by composers Aaron Copland, Giovanni Gabrieli, Paul Dukas, Antonio Vivaldi, Robert Schumann and several others. Because homeschool groups are usually smaller than the magnet schools we are privileged to get the luxurious box seats. So fun!

Music to my Ears

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Today was the first youth program put on by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. We enjoyed a production featuring the history of percussion in the orchestra, from drums first borrowed from the military band to exotic instruments utilized by contemporary composers. The most fun-loving group of musicians in the orchestra guides us on a multi-cultural journey full of curricular connections including science, history, and music. The repertoire included music by Dvorák, Beethoven, Mozart, Rossini, Copland, and concluded with Leonard Bernstein’s ever-popular Mambo!

Kid Culture

Today was one of my favorite field trips, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. They have an amazing program for students that includes three or four performances per school year. Today's performance was 'I Am a Musician'. It was wonderful! They included an 8 year violinist playing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.' Later in the program a very talented 14 year old performed with the entire symphony a beautiful piece by French composer and pianist Georges Bizet.

Following the performance at the symphony, we headed over to the Dallas Museum of Art. The docent took us through the Bluebonnets and Beyond exhibit by Jullian Onderdonk. Most of the pieces were on loan by private collectors or other museums. Between this exhibit and the Turner exhibit the kids have seen an amazing collection from the impressionist era. We also viewed the new Young Masters exhibit.

Jon and the kids wrapped up the evening with softball practice for Abigail and a baseball game for Caleb. Caleb had three at bats; with a double, struck out and a fielders choice! I missed the action at the ballpark because of a board meeting for our home school group!

A Recipe for Music

February 5th, 2008

This was another one of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s kid’s performances, titled, "A Recipe for Music." It was great; they demonstrated the 3 ingredient needed to make music: rhythm, melody & harmony. One of the pieces they played was the music from the tornado scene in the Wizard of Oz. The program is put on for magnet schools, private schools, and homeschoolers in the area.

Dallas Symphony Children's Concert

This week was also the Kid's Concert by the Dallas Symphony at the Myerson. The featured instrument was the huge pipe organ.