Youth Concert Activities Welcome The Colorado Symphony musicians and I are all very excited you are coming to Boettcher Concert Hall for a field trip! The Colorful Colorado Symphony concert will be fun and inspirational. We will take you into the world of orchestration, exploring how composers use the orchestra s instruments to create colors, characters, places, and emotions. You will hear pieces of music designed to highlight each of the 4 instrument families in the orchestra and discover how Sergei Prokofiev uses the instruments to color music from his ballet Cinderella and his opera The Love For Three Oranges. We hope you have fun learning and preparing for your trip to hear the symphony. We re having fun getting the music ready for you! Christopher Dragon Christopher Dragon, Associate Conductor Preparing For Your musicurious Concert Experience It s always special to visit Boettcher Concert Hall, the home of your Colorado Symphony. You may wear your regular school clothes or special occasion clothes if you d like. Enjoying and engaging in a shared concert experience with the Colorado Symphony is more important that what you choose to wear. Before you enter Boettcher Concert Hall, make sure to turn off cell phones and other electronic devices. Listen attentively so you can hear and remember every note. We want you to talk about the concert on the bus ride back to school and at home later! Feel free to clap and show your appreciation for the performance when the conductor has lowered his arms. The musicians really like your enthusiastic clapping with the music is finished! 1 of 8
The Colorado Symphony Conductors The conductor is one of the most important people in the orchestra because they get all of the musicians to play together as one big instrument. The Colorado Symphony has five conductors: Music Director Andrew Litton Conductor Laureate Marin Alsop Chorus Director Duain Wolfe Associate Conductor Christopher Dragon Assistant Conductor Andres Lopera Meet Associate Conductor Christopher Dragon Colorado Symphony musicurious Youth Concerts will be conducted by Associate Conductor Christoper Dragon. This is Christopher s first year as Associate Conductor of the Colorado Symphony. He came all the way from Australia to be the Associate Conductor of the Colorado Symphony! In addition to conducting professional orchestras, he has worked with and for students conducting the West Australian Youth Orchestra, youth concerts of the Western Australia Symphony, and the Princess Galyani Vadhana Youth Orchestra in Thailand. In April of 2015, Christopher made his debut at the Sydney Opera House conducting the Sydney Symphony Orchestra with Australian singer/songwriter Josh Pyke. Since coming to Colorado he has conducted Colorado Symphony concerts at Red Rocks with Diana Krall, a staged production of The Music Man, and at Boettcher Concert Hall with ukulele master, Jake Shimabukuro. PHOTO CREDIT: BRANDON MARSHALL About The Composers PAUL DUKAS - OCTOBER 1, 1865 - MAY 17, 1935 Paul Dukas lived most of his life in Paris, France. His mother was a pianist and was his first teacher. He began composing music at age 14 and ended up teaching many great composers at the Paris Conservatory, including two of Mexico s most famous composers Manuel Ponce and Carlos Chávez. Dukas was very hard on himself and destroyed many of his compositions that he thought weren t good enough. Luckily, he didn t feel that way about his ballet La Péri, The Fairy, and even added the fanfare at the beginning to quiet the audience down so they could hear his music better! Dukas is most famous for writing The Sorcerer s Apprentice which was used in Walt Disney s Fantasia. 2 of 8
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH - MARCH 31, 1685 - JULY 28, 1750 Johann Sebastian Bach spent his whole life living and working in Germany. There were many musicians in his family. His father was his first music teacher, and after that he studied music with his much older brother, Johann Christian Bach. He loved learning new music and once walked 280 miles just to hear another composer s concert! Bach also loved puzzles and often wrote them into his music. He thought he was a pretty great composer, even though other composers of his time began to tell him he was old fashioned. He had a special signature that showed his confidence and also his affinity for puzzles. He wove his initials together forward and backward and then put a king s crown on top! Bach composed many pieces of music in his lifetime and is considered to be the inventor of the basic rules composers use to write harmony. Air from Suite 3 for string orchestra is one of Bach s most popular pieces of music. BENJAMIN BRITTEN - NOVEMBER 22, 1913 - DECEMBER 4, 1976 Benjamin Britten lived in England for most of his life, but also lived in New York for a few years during World War II as an artistic ambassador. When he was young his mother started to teach him piano, though he quickly became better than her! He also learned to play viola and began to be interested in composition; all by the age of ten. Benjamin Britten was a hard worker who loved playing and writing music. He was invited to learn from some of England s best composition teachers and ended up composing more than 65 major pieces of music. One of his best known compositions is The Young Person s Guide to the Orchestra, which he wrote for an educational movie featuring the London Symphony. JOHN WILLIAMS - FEBRUARY 8, 1932 John Williams (the only living composer whose music you ll hear) was born in New York. His father was a jazz drummer and two of his brothers are jazz musicians and conductors as well. Williams studied piano, conducting, and composition and played jazz concerts throughout his early years. He first got into film work as a pianist and then began composing music for television and movies in 1958 when he was just 26 years old! John Williams has been nominated for 49 Academy Awards, second only to Walt Disney. His most famous movie soundtracks include Jaws, Star Wars, and Harry Potter, but he has also composed 15 concertos and 23 pieces of music for symphony orchestra. Nimbus 2000 is from the first three Harry Potter films and is a great piece of music for showcasing the woodwind instruments. SERGEI PROKOFIEV - APRIL 23, 1891 - MARCH 5, 1953 Although Sergei Prokofiev traveled to many places, he lived most of his life in Russia. He first learned to play piano from his mother who also noticed he had a lot of talent for composing his own music. When he was just five years old Prokofiev made his mother write down a piece he composed using only the white keys on the piano since he was having trouble learning how to use the black keys. By the time he was nine years old he started composing his first opera. Prokofiev was also interested in chess; managing to play against world champions and even beating one in 1914 when he was just 23. All his life he kept a chess set on top of his piano in case he needed a break from composing music. He wrote his opera The Love For Three Oranges in 1921 while traveling in America. He wrote his ballet Cinderella back at home in Russia, finishing it in 1944. You might know Peter and the Wolf, one of Prokofiev s most popular compositions for orchestra. 3 of 8
Get To Know The Instrument Families Of The Symphony Orchestra Your Colorado Symphony Orchestra is made up of 80 musicians playing instruments from one of four groups, or families, of instruments. Here are some facts about each instrument family. The Brass Family TUBA TROMBONE FRENCH HORN TRUMPET Made of metal Players buzz their lips inside a mouthpiece to produce the sound One long tube that curves around becoming wider and bell shaped at the end Players change pitches, or notes, by changing the pressure of their buzzing lips Modern brass instruments help with these pitch changes by using valves or a slide which tricks the instrument into thinking its tube is longer or shorter than it is Longer tubes make lower pitches and shorter tubes make higher pitches Tuba plays the lowest pitches, then trombone and French horn Trumpet has the smallest length of tube and therefore plays the highest pitches Being made of metal causes the sound to project in a direct and loud way Brass instruments are often used to signal something important The Strings Family BASS CELLO VIOLA VIOLIN Made of wood Produce their sound by moving a stick with horse hair on it called a bow back and forth across the strings To make different pitches, players press their fingers down in various spots on the string to trick it into thinking it s longer or shorter The shorter the string is the higher the pitch, and the longer the string is the lower the pitch Bass has the longest strings and therefore makes the lowest pitches. Cello is played upright like the bass but is smaller and makes the next to lowest pitches of all the stringed instruments Viola looks almost exactly like the violin and is played on the shoulder, but because it s bigger and has longer strings than the violin it plays medium high notes Violin plays the highest notes because it is the very smallest and has the shortest strings in the family Wood is a porous material which makes the sound warm and rich Because the bow can make very long sustained sounds as well as never needing to breathe in order to play, string instruments are often used to create long luscious melodies and lots of never ending fast notes 4 of 8
The Percussion Family SNARE DRUM TRIANGLE Produce their sound by shaking, scraping, striking, or plucking There are more percussion instruments than can possibly be listed Made from any kind of material you can imagine The most versatile family of instruments when it comes to colors of sound Percussion section provides rhythm, color, punctuation and points of interest to the sound of of the orchestra CYMBALS TIMPANI MARIMBA HARP PIANO The Woodwind Family CLARINET FLUTE BASSOON OBOE Made of a combination of wood and metal Constructed from a tube with holes which can be covered or left open by keys or the player s fingertips Covering and uncovering the holes tricks the tube into thinking it s longer or shorter which produces lower or higher pitches To make a sound on the flute the player blows air across an opening near the top of the flute Clarinet uses a single flat piece of wood called a reed which vibrates against a mouthpiece Bassoon and oboe use a double reed - 2 reeds tied together that buzz against one another when the player blows air through it Bassoon is large and gets a lively and sometimes buzzy sound to its low notes Clarinet, a medium sized instrument, can sound very smooth and play extremely softly Oboe has a directed and clear quality similar to the trumpet but in a more plaintive and searching way Flute has a beautiful light and airy sound which helps its high pitches float right into our ears Because the woodwind family instruments sound so different from one another they are often used as individual soloists in the orchestra and to provide interesting color combinations with other instruments 5 of 8
Name: Describe your own concert version of a story! BEFORE THE COLORADO SYMPHONY CONCERT: Think about a folk tale, myth, comic book hero/villain story, or historical legend (for example, Paul Revere s ride). Describe how you might use the instruments of the orchestra to show character, setting, action, or state of mind in this story. Be as detailed as possible. AFTER THE COLORADO SYMPHONY CONCERT: Take a look at your story and music description above. What would you change now that you ve gotten a chance to hear the Colorado Symphony play the music of the Cinderella story? 6 of 8
Match the language to the composer whose music you ll hear played by the Colorado Symphony! Below is a list of languages, countries, composers and words that mean quarter note. Match the composer to the correct language, country and quarter note words. There are 3 more languages and countries included than composers, so be careful! Activity 1 Countries & Languages Vietnam Germany Russia England United States France Mexico Kenya Spanish English French Vietnamese Swahili Russian English German crotchet noire Viertelnote robo kumbuka negra quarter note четвертная нота nốt đen PAUL DUKAS JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH JOHN WILLIAMS BENJAMIN BRITTEN SERGEI PROKOFIEV 7 of 8
Activity 2 S T. PA R PET IS LO N D O N E = 4,881 MILES DENVER WEIMAR LA D E NV ER = 83 0 MILES 5,095 MILES DENVER = RG RSBU DENVER Mode of Transportation 3 = 4,68 MILE,083 DENVER = 5 S MIL ES Take a look at this world map. There is a star on every country representing the home of a composer whose music you ll hear played by the Colorado Symphony. Their music is coming a long way to your ears - thousands of miles! What if the composers wanted to travel to Boettcher Concert Hall? How might they have done it during their lifetime? Match each composer to the mode of transportation they might use: JOHN WILLIAMS PAUL DUK AS JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH BENJAMIN BRIT TEN SERGEI PROKOFIE V 8 of 8