The Planets Youth Concerts. sponsored by: Additional support for Education Programs provided by:

Transcription

1 The Planets Youth Concerts sponsored by: Additional support for Education Programs provided by:

2 Welcome Dear Parents and Educators, Thank you for your interest in the Portland Symphony Orchestra Youth Concerts. We are delighted to see you in the audience! Youth Concerts provide a classical music education opportunity which brings together schools, students, parents, teachers, and the Portland Symphony. Join conductor Robert Moody and the PSO as they demonstrate a variety of repertoire and discover in addition to the instruments of the orchestra, many elements such as music history, living composers, student performers and notable guest artists. This fall, join the PSO on an exciting trip through outer space! Visit uncharted galaxies and explore the solar system with celestial music from John William s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Holst s The Planets. Audiences will hear musical interpretations of some of the planets in our solar system including: Uranus (the magician), Mars (the bringer of war) and Jupiter (the bringer of jollity). Planetary images projected over the stage will be a part of this special concert. This spring is your opportunity to hear all the instruments in the orchestra in one of the most popular works in children s music. Britten s A Young Person s Guide to the Orchestra demonstrates the individual sounds of the woodwinds, brass, strings and percussion, and the sounds of the orchestra together. Also featured on this concert will be this year s winner of the Young Composer Festival in partnership with MMEA. These materials and lessons have been developed with the help of The Center for Excellence in Music Education (CEME) under the leadership of Dr. Michele Kaschub. These materials will prepare and engage students for the upcoming performances. Another resource I encourage you to use is our website, PortlandSymphony.org where you will find educational guides for both our Youth Concerts and KinderKonzerts. Teacher s Materials and audio CD s are provided prior to the concert experience. Feel free to duplicate the materials as needed. Your feedback is important to us. Evaluation forms are available online and can be found in this packet. You can mail or fax the evaluations or your feedback to us so we can make these concerts the best that they can be. Thank you for your support of our Youth Concerts this year, for sharing the PSO with your students and for the dedication you maintain each day to bring music to young people in our community. Whether this is your first concert or you have become a seasoned veteran, we hope you enjoy this year s Youth Concerts. Sincerely, Heather Sumner Education and Community Engagement Manager (207) ext. 308 education@portlandsymphony.org 1

3 Concert Program Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 9:30 and 11:10 AM 86th Season, The Planets Robert Moody, conductor J. Adams Short Ride in a Fast Machine Machine (b.1947) J. Williams Suite from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (b.1932) G. Holst The Planets ( ) Mars, the Bringer of War Uranus, the Magician Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity COMPANION CD TRACKS: 1. Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine (4:05) (Performed by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra) 2. Williams: Main Theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (7:04) (Performed by the R. Hayman Orchestra) 3. Holst: Mars, the Bringer of War from The Planets (7:45) (Performed by the CSR Symphony Orchestra) 4. Holst: Uranus, the Magician from The Planets (5:45) (Performed by the CSR Symphony Orchestra) 5. Holst: Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity from The Planets (8:00) (performed by the CSR Symphony Orchestra) 2

4 Notes on the Program John Adams John Adams was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in He graduated from Harvard in 1971, then joined the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory for ten years. He has had a long relationship with the San Francisco Symphony, where he was composer-in-residence for much of that time. He is perhaps best known for his operas Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer, but he has also composed major instrumental works such as his Chamber Symphony, Violin Concerto, and Short Ride in a Fast Machine. The minimalism of his earliest pieces has gradually changed over time, with more emphasis on melody and more romantic sounding colors and harmonies. Short Ride in a Fast Machine is an example of minimalist classical music. Minimalist music is very different from regular music, in which we expect melody and accompaniment. With minimalism there is almost no melody at all. The harmonies are nearly static that is, they may stay on one chord for extremely long periods, even the length of the piece. And there is frequent use of busy ostinato rhythms rhythms that motor on continuously throughout the music. In a way, minimalist music doesn t seem to go anywhere. But if you listen closely, you ll hear the music gradually changing and evolving over time. The focus is more on the color and texture of the music. Color and texture in music comes from the sounds of the instruments. Each has its own tone-color: woody, brassy, bright, warm, edgy, mellow all the sounds instruments can make. Texture in music comes from whether the notes are long or short and whether they are played smoothly or percussively. By transforming color and texture over the duration of a piece, the music actually does go somewhere. Short Ride in a Fast Machine In explaining the title of this piece, Adams said, You know how it is when someone asks you to ride in a terrific sports car, and then you wish you hadn t? Short Ride in a Fast Machine begins with the wood block sound that drives the entire piece. Adams described the persistent woodblock as almost sadistic, a kind of gauntlet through which the rest of the music must pass. The orchestra soon joins with exuberant, joyful music is full of anticipation and excitement. The overall texture remains very similar while various instruments or sections of the orchestra make interjections along the way. Those interjections sound like the passenger s terrified cries as he holds on for dear life. It s a fun ride. Vocabulary Minimalism: In music, a style of modern music that uses simple rhythms, patterns, and melodies. Romantic: Sounds in a piece that show expressive emotion and deeper feeling. Ostinato: A repeated rhythmic pattern. Wood Block: A small percussion instrument made from a single piece of wood and hit with a stick. Gauntlet: A challenge or a wall that must be completed or broken down before one can move forward. Interjections: A sudden remark used to exclaim or command. 3

5 Notes on the Program continued John Williams Nearly everyone has heard music by composer John Williams even if they don t know it, for he has composed music for countless films, including Jaws, the Star Wars movies, Superman, the Indiana Jones movies, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, the first three Harry Potter films, and many, many more. He is also a conductor. He was the conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra for thirteen years, and still returns to conduct the Pops several times each year. Composing a movie soundtrack is a special kind of composing because the music has to help the movie tell its story. The music may be happy or sad, scary or exciting. It can tell us when there s danger lurking around the corner or when a happy ending has come, without the movie having to say so in words. Composing music for Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a special challenge, because the music is so important that it s really another character in the film. Suite from Close Encounters of the Third Kind Strange things are happening: a lost squadron of WWII aircraft are found intact in a Mexican desert; airline pilots are seeing UFOs in the sky; three year-old Barry Guiler is awakened by his toys noisily coming to life; and electrical lineman Roy Neary is becoming obsessed with a mysterious mountain. The human race is about to have a close encounter of the third kind was a year for science-fiction films. George Lukas Star Wars was an action-packed western set in space, and it became of the most popular movies ever made. The same year, Steven Spielberg s Close Encounters of the Third Kind brought the aliens here to earth, where we meet them at last. Spielberg was inspired by many things when he made Close Encounters, but he has often said that his chief inspiration for the movie was the song When You Wish Upon a Star from Disney s Pinocchio: I hung my story on the mood the song created, the way it affected me personally. One of the most important questions the movie tries to answer is: How do you communicate with an alien from another world when you don t speak their language? The answer is music. Before the aliens visit, they plant a curious little five-note melody in the heads of people all over the world. When the aliens arrive, humans play that melody back to them, and they seem to understand. The climactic scene of the movie shows the humans and aliens joyously playing music to each other, all based on that five-note melody. When the movie was made, Spielberg and Williams tried out over 250 different five-note themes before Spielberg chose the one used in the film: D-E-C-C-G. In the Suite that we hear today, you can hear that melody trying to sneak into the music at first; by the end it takes over the whole piece. 4

6 Notes on the Program continued The music also goes from a kind of scary uncertainty at the beginning of the movie to happiness at the end. John Williams did this by using atonal music in the beginning and transforming it into tonal music by the end. Tonal music is what we re used to in almost every song we know: the melody and harmony work together to give us a sense of home in the music, and we always know when we ve reached the end because the music has come home. But atonal music doesn t have a place we can call home. It sounds mixedup and chaotic, and we never know when it s going to end. Williams used the atonal music at the beginning of the movie to show that the humans weren t quite sure what was going to happen when we met the aliens. He transformed it into tonal music by the end, when everyone was sure things would turn out alright. So the movie score did just what it should it helped the movie tell its story. Vocabulary Composer: A person who writes or creates original music. Conductor: A person who directs a group of musicians with visible gestures. Gustav Holst Gustav Holst ( ) was an English composer, conductor, and teacher. He was also a pianist, but a nerve condition in his right arm caused him to switch to trombone. Before The Planets made him famous, he made his living as a trombone player in London s orchestras and as the Music Master at the St. Paul s Girls School, where he taught until his death. Holst had very diverse interests. On the one hand he was devoted to the rich tradition of English folk music; he collected and catalogued authentic folk tunes with his lifelong friend (and fellow composer) Ralf Vaughan Williams, and used them frequently in his own music. On the other, he was fascinated by Eastern religions; he even learned Sanskrit in order to translate and set to music parts of the Hindu Rig Veda. With his head in the cosmos but with his feet firmly planted in his folk heritage you could say he was the ideal person to compose The Planets. The Planets Holst had wanted to compose a large orchestral work for some time. He even had a title: Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra. But it was not until a friend introduced him to astrology that Holst found a theme that inspired him: he would call his work The Planets, but he would treat them in the astrological sense, not the astronomical. Holst didn t believe in astrology as some people do, to explain the present and predict the future. He was more interested in how it described different kinds of people. In astrology, the planets have influence on people and each planet influences them in different ways. Each 5

7 Notes on the Program continued movement of The Planets is a character piece, a musical metaphor for the influence of each ruling planet. The Planets, then, is a work about the human experience, not the cosmic. To help people understand the music, Holst wrote that the movements of the work have no story-telling in them, neither have they any connection with the gods of classical mythology bearing the same names. If any guide to the music is required, the subtitles to each piece will be found sufficient, especially if they are used in a broad sense. Holst composed seven planets : earth was not included, and Pluto had not yet been discovered. We will play three of the planets for you: Mars, Jupiter, and Uranus. Mars, the Bringer of War is so ominous that many people thought it was Holst s reaction to the horrors of World War One; actually, Holst had composed the movement before the war began. Nevertheless, when you hear the sound of the string section striking the strings with the wood part of their bows, the relentless drums, and the boiling harmonies, you will hear a musical portrait of evil. When you hear the opening of Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity, it s hard not to think of the planet itself this music is big, and big-hearted, as if celebrating a bold frontier of unimaginable scale. Holst wrote: Jupiter brings jollity in the ordinary sense, and also the more ceremonial kind of rejoicing associated with religious or national festivities. The ceremonial rejoicing comes to us in the middle of the movement, with a hymn tune of noble beauty. The ominous opening of Uranus, the Magician reminds us that the sorcerer has a dark side, but then the music turns more playful. Holst performs his own musical magic with exciting music and sparkling colors. Vocabulary Folk Tunes: Songs or melodies passed down from generation to generation. Eastern Religions: a term used to refer to religions originating in the Eastern world: India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Sanskrit: The classical language of India. Hindu: Religion primarily from the country of India. Astrology: A belief that one s life is determined by the position of the planets and stars. Ominous: Dark, scary, menacing sounds Movement: A piece of music that comes from a much larger work. Hymn: A type of song written for praise to a prominent figure. - Program notes written by Mark Rohr, bass trombonist for the PSO. 6

8 Lesson Plan: Learning Solfege How do you communicate with an alien from another world when you don t speak their language? The answer is music. Practice these Solfege syllables and hand signs with the Main Theme from John Williams Close Encounters of the Third Kind as heard on the Companion CD. The five musical tones chosen by John Williams for Close Encounters are D, E, C, C, G Re Mi Do Do Sol In solfege, the syllables used are Re, Mi, Do, and Do, Sol. (The second Do is an octave below the first.) 7

9 What Students Should Know The National Standard for the Arts were developed by the Consortium of National Arts Education Associations. Several of the standards for music are addressed in varying degrees through the concert, preparation, and pre/post exercises. This is a summary of those standards and how they apply to your child s concert experience. I. Students should be able to communicate at a basic level in the art form Learning the vocabulary involved in music: instrument names, families, technical and expressive terms, and understanding of basic structural forms. The glossary, suggested resources and activities will help your students become comfortable with understanding the musical language. II. Students should be able to communicate proficiently in at least one art form The bulk of the responsibility lies on the school and student. However, many people are inspired to learn an instrument and play in a musical group by their early experiences including hearing live music. III. Students should be able to develop and present a basic analysis of a work of art The process of preparation before a concert, the concert experience, and a reflection afterwards will help students intelligently understand and evaluate the music they experience. IV. Students should be able to demonstrate an informal acquaintance with exemplary works of art from a variety of cultures and historical periods The concerts are designed to highlight famous and significant works embracing several hundred years of Western classical music as well as music of non-western cultures. V. Students should be able to relate to various types of arts knowledge and skills within and across the arts By integrating the study of music and related themes into the classroom, students discover that music has many connections to other areas of learning. Because of the experiential nature of music, often concepts and knowledge can be related to other subjects. 8

10 Learning Activities Concert Worksheet Name: Date: 1. What three groups of string instruments are placed on the conductor s right hand side? 2. What two groups of string instruments are placed on the conductor s left hand side? 3. Which instruments are placed directly behind the harp? 4. Name two other instruments that the pianist might be asked to play. 5. What family of twelve instruments sits right in the middle of the orchestra? 6. Which orchestral family contains the greatest number of different instruments? 7. How many drums does the PSO timpanist normally use in a concert? 8. Which brass instrument uses a SLIDE to change from one note to the next? 9. Name all the members of the brass family that us VALVES to change from one note to the next. 10. Name all of the DOUBLE REED members of the woodwind family. 11. Which two families of instruments use mutes to change the color and volume of their sound? 12. Which string instrument can play the lowest? 13. Which string instrument can play the highest? 14. How many first violins play in a PSO Youth Concert? 15. How many second violins play in a PSO Youth Concert? 16. How many violas play on a PSO Youth Concert? 17. How many cellos play on a PSO Youth Concert? 18. How many basses play on a PSO Youth Concert? 9

11 Learning Activities continued Concert Worksheet Answer Key 1. Violas, Cellos and Double Basses 2. First Violins and Second Violins 3. Trombones and Tuba 4. Celesta and Synthesizer 5. The Woodwind family 6. The Percussion family 7. Four 8. The Trombone 9. Trumpets, French Horns, and Tuba 10. Oboe, English Horn, Bassoon and contra Bassoon 11. Strings and Brass 12. The Double Bass 13. The Violin 14. Nine 15. Eight 16. Six 17. Five 18. Four 10

12 The Portland Gazette As a writer for the Portland Gazette, it is your job to review the Youth Concert held by the Portland Symphony Orchestra at Merrill Auditorium. Let the Gazette s readers know what you think. What did you like about the concert and why? Did the PSO give a good performance? What about the guest artists? Should your readers attend this concert? Remember that it is a critic s job to report both the positive and negative events accurately. Have your teacher send us your reviews. Remember, your opinion counts. PSO at Merrill Auditorium Reviewed by: (your name here) 11

13 Student Evaluation We would like to know how you felt about your concert experience. After you attend the concert, please fill out this page and give it to your teacher. Thank you! Name School Grade level Date of concert attended Please answer the following questions in your own words: 1. Name two things that you liked about the Youth Concert? 2. Name two things that you heard or saw that you hadn t expected to see or hear. 3. Is there something you would like to learn more about? 4. At the concert, was there an important moment, or piece, that you particularly remember? What was special about it? 5. How would you describe your concert experience to a friend who had not attended the concert? 6. Would you recommend this concert to your friends? 12

14 Teacher Evaluation Your opinion is important to us! Help us improve these concerts and the Teacher s Guide by completing this survey and mailing it to: Heather Sumner, Portland Symphony Orchestra, PO Box 3573, Portland, ME Name School Address 1. I used the Teacher s Guide in preparing my class for the concert Yes No 2. The material in the Teacher s Guide was appropriate for the grade level and interest Yes No < Disagree or Agree > Concert pieces were appropriate for audience and grade level Students felt a sense of involvement with the concert Narrated comments contributed to the overall understanding of musical concepts Ushers and staff were pleasant and helpful of musical concepts Logistics of the concert were clearly communicated Do you/your school have specific learning outcomes for Youth Concerts? Yes No If so, how do you assess what the children have learned? Teacher observation Projects/investigations Other Portfolio 7. Would you suggest anything to improve this program? Yes No 8. Would you like to submit materials or lesson plans to be included in our education materials? Yes No Comments (please continue on reverse if necessary) The goals of the Youth Concerts are to: (1) Expose students ages 8-13 to a full symphony orchestra playing live music from a variety of stylistic and ethnic traditions (2) Inspire students and instill in them a life-long appreciation and love for music (3) Contribute to the current school curriculum and assist students in mastering the Learning Results in music and other discipline areas as mandated by the State of Maine. Do you feel we met these goals, please explain? Yes No 13