Jill and Michael Gallina share news of their exciting new musical that highlights the importance of literature and reading:

If you are interested in a musical that takes place entirely on risers and integrates music and children’s literature into one easy-to-produce package, we hope you’ll consider our latest “Rise and Shine” musical SING ME A STORY: Classic Stories Throughout Time Come to Life in Song and Rhyme for Grades 2-5. Given the fact that literature is such an integral part of every child’s learning experiences, we created a musical that introduces children to scenes from children’s classics all set within the magical medium of music! What better way than music to whet children’s appetites for becoming lifelong readers? What better way than music to support literature-based incentive programs such as “Read Across America?”

Sing Me a Story includes original songs that are used to highlight the very essence of some of literature’s best-loved children’s stories. Wander in “The Secret Garden” or journey to far-away lands and meet such characters as Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter, Thumbelina, Pinocchio, Tinkerbell, the Ugly Duckling, and the Little Mermaid. We realize the unrelenting expectations placed on music teachers and thus created the Rise and Shine musical format to enable teachers to perform the entire production on risers with optional props, hand motions, and basic riser choreography.

Sing Me A Story musical kit includes:

- easy-to-memorize rhyming dialogue
- director’s score
- singers’ parts (for unison or optional 2-part songs)
- simple choreography, prop, and performance suggestions
- American Sign Language instructions
- reproducible student pages
- enhanced StudioTrax CD with both accompaniment and full performance tracks, plus reproducible poster, program, clip art, and composer’s info

 As musicians, we are of course well aware of the importance that music plays in the curriculum as a viable entity unto itself, but with budget cuts and music positions being threatened across the country, why not deliver the one-two punch and show how music can also be most the effective way to teach and extend learning into all other areas of the curriculum!

–Guest blog by Jill and Michael Gallina

 Sing Me A Story is now available at Music in Motion.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) wrote numerous concertos, many of them for the young ladies who resided in the Venetian orphanage where Vivaldi was employed for most of his working career. (Many of these “orphans” were daughters of affluent  noblemen and their mistresses, and they lived in very comfortable circumstances and were given excellent musical training.)  Some of Vivaldi’s concertos are highly descriptive, including his most famous “Four Seasons” Concertos.  Vivaldi himself wrote descriptive titles and poems that accompanied each movement of the concertos in the Four Seasons cycle. Here is a translation of the titles and verses that accompanied Concerto #3 in F Major, “Autumn”:

Movement 1: Allegro (Peasant Dance and Song)
The peasant celebrates with song and dance the harvest safely gathered in.
The cup of Bacchus flows freely, and many find their relief in deep slumber.

Movement 2: Adagio molto (Sleeping after the harvest celebration)
The singing and the dancing die away
as cooling breezes fan the pleasant air,
inviting all to sleep
without a care.

Movement 3: Allegro (The Hunt)
The hunters emerge at dawn,
ready for the chase,
with horns and dogs and cries.
Their quarry flees while they give chase.
Terrified and wounded, the prey struggles on,
but, harried, dies?

Now enjoy the music of “Autumn,” as performed in the National Botanical Gardens of Wales by Julia Fischer on violin, accompanied by the  Academy of St. Martin’s in the Field.

Concerto No.3 in F Major, RV 293, "AUTUMN"

Tips for Teacher

1. Ask students if Vivaldi’s titles and verses for the movements are reflected in his actual music? Ask them to point out events in the poem when they hear them in the music. Discuss the tempos for each movement, and why Vivaldi chose them to express his musical and poetic ideas.
2. Discuss what a harvest festival is, and what it would mean to the peasants. Why would music be important during a festival?
3. Invent your own “peasant dance” and perform it to the music.
4. Show the class Pieter Breugel’s painting “The Peasant Dance.” Discuss the feasting, dancing, and revelry. Ask why the peasants might be celebrating, and what season of the year it might be.

5. Discuss what autumn means to children and families today.What events do they enjoy that occur only in this season?
6. Ask students to write a poem about autumn.
7. Is there an American holiday that happens in the fall, where we enjoy a feast?
8. Celebrate the changing of the season with a “listening” walk, and discuss sights, sounds, and the weather, to see what signs of autumn you can find. (And when you get home, pour a cup of hot apple cider and listen to Vivaldi’s “Autumn” again!)

 Educator Guides to the Operas

Plan an opera study unit for your students based on one of the operas in the
2010-11 Metropolitan Opera season, climaxing with a Night at the Opera in a local movie theater or at your school. The Met Live in HD series offers free opera-specific educational guides you can use to prepare students for viewing the opera performance, including classroom activities, story synopsis, background on the opera and composer, musical highlights with audio clips, post-opera activities, and more.

Note to Teachers: Have your kids write a paragraph on their “Night at the Opera,” and we’ll share some on our blog or website.

Opera in the Classroom Program

 The Metropolitan Opera has partnered with some school districts around the country to bring their HD Live opera productions into schools. Please check to see if your school district participates, as this brings opera free to students. If your school is not participating, contact the Met to see how you can bring the program to your school.

The fifth season of the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series is coming to a movie theater near you! Enjoy front row seats at these live opening night productions. It is so easy to feel more engaged with opera on a large screen, where you can see everything “up close and personal.”  Feel the pre-performance tension as the audience gathers before the conductor appears and the orchestra begins the overture. Then enjoy backstage interviews with the stars during intermission, or take a refreshment break yourself, get a popcorn refill, and mingle with other opera-g0ers in the theater lobby.  What an exciting night of music and drama is in store for you with each performance. And the price of the theater ticket is usually only $15 to $20.  Check the link for the theaters where you can see opening night or Encore performances (subject to change, so verify with your local theater):

Movie Theaters where you can see the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series (listed by state/city, last updated 8/25/2010)

If you miss the simulcast live opening night Metropolitan Opera performances at a theater near you, you can catch the Encore screenings at other movie theaters. These are the Movie Theaters where you can see the Metropolitan Opera Encore performances (listed by state, city).

Educator Guides to the Operas

Plan an opera study unit for your students based on one of the operas in the 2010-11 Met season, climaxing with a Night at the Opera in a local movie theater. The Met Live in HD series offers free opera-specific educational guides you can use to prepare students for viewing the opera performance, including classroom activities, story synopsis, background on the opera and composer, musical highlights with audio clips, post-opera activities, and more.

Note to Teachers: Have your kids write a paragraph on their “Night at the Opera,” and we’ll share some on our blog or website.

Opera in the Classroom Program

The Metropolitan Opera has also partnered with school districts around the country to bring their HD Live opera productions into schools. Please check to see if your school district participates, as this brings opera free to students in certain districts. If your school is not participating, contact the Met to see how you can bring the program to your school.

METROPOLITAN OPERA: Live in HD in Movie Theaters

2010-11 Schedule

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Wagner’s Das Rheingold

October 9, 2010 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 3 hours

Two unparalleled artists join forces to create a groundbreaking new Ring for the Met: Maestro James Levine and director Robert Lepage. The cycle launches with Das Rheingold, the prologue to Wagner’s epic drama. “The Ring is not just a story or a series of operas, it’s a cosmos,” says Lepage, who brings cutting-edge technology and his own visionary imagination to the world’s greatest theatrical journey. Bryn Terfel sings the leading role of Wotan for the first time with the company, heading an extraordinary cast.

James Levine; Wendy Bryn Harmer, Stephanie Blythe, Patricia Bardon, Richard Croft, Gerhard Siegel, Bryn Terfel, Eric Owens, Franz-Josef Selig, Hans-Peter König

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Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov

October 23, 2010 at 12:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 5 hours

René Pape takes on one of the greatest bass roles in a new production by Stephen Wadsworth. Valery Gergiev conducts Mussorgsky’s epic spectacle that captures the suffering and ambition of a nation, with Aleksandrs Antonenko, Vladimir Ognovenko, and Ekaterina Semenchuk leading the huge cast.

Valery Gergiev; Ekaterina Semenchuk, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Oleg Balashov, Evgeny Nikitin, René Pape, Mikhail Petrenko, Vladimir Ognovenko

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Donizetti’s Don Pasquale

November 13, 2010 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 3 hours, 30 minutes

Anna Netrebko revives her sensational turn in this sophisticated bel canto comedy, opposite Matthew Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecien, and John Del Carlo in the title role. Music Director James Levine conducts. When Otto Schenk’s production premiered in 2006, the New York Times called it “brilliant” and “wonderful.”

James Levine; Anna Netrebko, Matthew Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecien, John Del Carlo

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Verdi’s Don Carlo

December 11, 2010 at 12:30 pm ET
Expected Running time: 4 hours, 30 minutes

Director Nicholas Hytner makes his Met debut with this new production of Verdi’s profound, beautiful, and most ambitious opera. Roberto Alagna leads the cast, and Ferruccio Furlanetto, Marina Poplavskaya, Anna Smirnova, and Simon Keenlyside also star. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, back after his triumphant debut leading Carmen, conducts. “I think Don Carlo is the quintessential Verdi opera,” Hytner says. “Right through this opera there is, on the one hand, an implacable expression of impending doom and, on the other hand, a succession of the most gloriously open-throated arias, the most fantastically determined music.”

Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Marina Poplavskaya, Anna Smirnova, Roberto Alagna, Simon Keenlyside, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Eric Halfvarson

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Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West

January 8, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 3 hours, 30 minutes

Puccini’s wild-west opera had its world premiere in 1910 at the Met. Now, on the occasion of its centennial, all-American diva Deborah Voigt sings the title role of the “girl of the golden west,” starring opposite Marcello Giordani. Nicola Luisotti conducts.

Nicola Luisotti; Deborah Voigt, Marcello Giordani, Lucio Gallo

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Adams’s Nixon in China

February 12, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 4 hours

“All of my operas have dealt on deep psychological levels with our American mythology,” says composer John Adams, who conducts the Met premiere of his most famous opera. “The meeting of Nixon and Mao is a mythological moment in world history, particularly American history.” Acclaimed director and longtime Adams collaborator Peter Sellars makes his Met debut with this groundbreaking 1987 work, an exploration of the human truths beyond the headlines surrounding President Nixon’s 1972 encounter with Communist China. Baritone James Maddalena stars in the title role.

John Adams; Kathleen Kim, Janis Kelly, Robert Brubaker, Russell Braun, James Maddalena, Richard Paul Fink

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Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride

February 26, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Susan Graham and Plácido Domingo reprise their starring roles in Gluck’s nuanced and elegant interpretation of this primal Greek myth. Tenor Paul Groves also returns to Stephen Wadsworth’s insightful production, first seen in 2007. Patrick Summers conducts.

Patrick Summers; Susan Graham, Plácido Domingo, Paul Groves, Gordon Hawkins

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Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor

March 19, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 4 hours

Natalie Dessay triumphed as the fragile heroine of Donizetti’s masterpiece on Opening Night of the 2007–08 season in Mary Zimmerman’s hit production. Now she returns to the role of the innocent young woman driven to madness, opposite Joseph Calleja, who sings her lover Edgardo.

Patrick Summers; Natalie Dessay, Joseph Calleja, Ludovic Tézier, Kwangchul Youn

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Rossini’s Le Comte Ory

April 9, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 3 hours

Rossini’s vocally dazzling comedy stars bel canto sensation Juan Diego Flórez in the title role of this Met premiere production. He vies with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, in the trouser role of Isolier, for the love of the lonely Countess Adèle, sung by soprano Diana Damrau. Bartlett Sher, director of the Met’s hit productions of The Barber of Seville and The Tales of Hoffmann, describes the world of the opera as, “a place where love is dangerous. People get hurt. That can be very funny and very painful. Rossini captures both—with the most beautiful love music Rossini ever wrote.”

Maurizio Benini; Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato, Susanne Resmark, Juan Diego Flórez, Stéphane Degout, Michele Pertusi

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Strauss’s Capriccio

April 23, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 3 hours

On Opening Night of the 2008–09 season, Renée Fleming dazzled audiences when she sang the final scene of Strauss’s wise and worldly meditation on art and life. Now she performs the entire work, in which the composer explores the essence of opera itself. Joseph Kaiser and Sarah Connolly also star, and Andrew Davis conducts.

Andrew Davis; Renée Fleming, Sarah Connolly, Joseph Kaiser, Russell Braun, Morten Frank Larsen, Peter Rose

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Verdi’s Il Trovatore

April 30, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 3 hours

David McVicar’s stirring production of Verdi’s intense drama premiered in the 2008–09 season. James Levine leads this revival, starring four extraordinary singers—Sondra Radvanovsky, Dolora Zajick, Marcelo Álvarez, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky—in what might be the composer’s most melodically rich score.

James Levine; Sondra Radvanovsky, Dolora Zajick, Marcelo Álvarez, Dmitri Hvorostovsky

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Wagner’s Die Walküre

May 14, 2011 at 12:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 5 hours, 15 minutes

A stellar cast comes together for this second installment of Robert Lepage’s new production of the Ring cycle, conducted by James Levine. Bryn Terfel is Wotan, lord of the Gods. Deborah Voigt adds the part of Brünnhilde to her extensive Wagnerian repertoire at the Met. Jonas Kaufmann and Eva-Maria Westbroek star as the twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde, and Stephanie Blythe is Fricka.

James Levine; Deborah Voigt, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Stephanie Blythe, Jonas Kaufmann, Bryn Terfel, Hans-Peter König

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Don’t Forget to Support Live Music Events in Your Community!

Even though the Met is coming to your neighborhood theater, don’t fail to subscribe to and support your local opera, symphony, ballet, theater, and other performing groups. The experience of attending live musical events is not replaceable by screened performances. The Live in HD series is a boon for those who have no live opera in their communities, but for those who do have local opera companies the Met series should enrich and not replace your live opera-going experiences. SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL PERFORMANCE COMPANIES, whether in music, dance, or theater, or you may one day find yourself without them. The Met series will hopefully attract a new and bigger audience, who will also become active supporters of their local musical companies.

Don’t underestimate the power of either sports or music when it comes to exciting a crowd. Even as a tormented composer writing under the harsh restrictions and demands of Communism, in his 1929 ballet  The Golden Age big-time soccer fan and sometime soccer referee Shostakovich recreated a soccer match. In this ballet, a communist soccer team travels to the West to compete against the evil “capitalists” (real boiler-plate geo-political plot!).  Listen to his brilliant recreation of a fast-paced soccer match:

I would love to have seen this ballet scene. Wonder if the choreographer was a soccer fan too? Probably so. . .

Tips for Music Teachers:

1. Play this musical soccer match for your students, and see how many can guess what sport is being depicted. 

2. Ask students to guess why the composer chose to include this work in a ballet, rather than a symphony, opera, or choral work.

3. Ask students to choreograph & perform in teams their own interpretation of Shostakovich’s soccer match.

4. Ask students to research other examples where composers have depicted sports events in their music (and share them with us!).

5. Ask students to describe what music and sports have in common.

6. Show students the vuvuzela, the obnoxiously loud, monotone horn used at this year’s World Cup.  This is a great seque to open the discussion on noise pollution and hearing protection! (Hope they ban the horn for the next World Cup!)

When famed Broadway songwriter Jason Bert Brown discovered his songs were being “traded” freely online by those who had never purchased a legal copy, he thoughtfully requested that the traders stop the illegal trading. Read this fascinating exchange with a recalcitrant yet extremely bright and articulate teenager. Eleanor’s teenage sense of entitlement is absolutely breathtaking. Her arguments are devoid of any sense of morality (other than her own moral outrage at being asked to remove the illegal songs), yet her rationalizations at stealing other people’s music without paying the $3.99 download fee are worthy of a silver-tongued trial lawyer.  

Please read this exchange in it’s entirety, and more importantly, read it to your own kids and students. I would love to hear from you on how Eleanor’s slippery moral and “aesthetic” arguments for copyright theft either resonate with or repel other teens. The technology is in place for easy illegal “trading” of music: now it’s time to work on how to instill in teens (and adults, I might add) the sense of responsibility, ethics, and control needed to understand and appreciate why copyright violation, though easy, is both illegal and immoral.

This dramatic battle between the composer and the teen is itself worthy of a Broadway play, and a Pulitzer. Read it now:

  FIGHTING WITH TEENS: A Copyright Story

Bring full-scale Metropolitan Opera productions into your classroom! The free Live in HD school program from the Met is now available in some school districts around the country, and online educational guides put the icing on the cake.  Teaching guides for each Metropolitan opera production include classroom activities, musical highlights, story synopses, accompanying audio clips, post-opera discussion and activities, and student resources—all practical tools to help students prepare for and understand the operas, and to engage fully in their shared opera experience. What an intelligent way for the Met to build future audiences for opera, and we applaud their wonderful program of making opera more widely accessible throughout the country.  Let’s hope this free school program will continue to expand to all schools. Please let the Met know how you feel, and to encourage expansion of this excellent program. Bravo! Encore!

Note to teachers: In case the Metropolitan Opera program is not currently available in your school district, consider taking your class during the coming school year to one of the Live in HD performances in local movie theaters near you. What a treat it is to view these performances, “up close and personal” on the big screen, with all the excitement and anticipation of being at the Met, in front row orchestra seats!

Educational Guides are available for these operas:

Armida

This mythical story of a sorceress who enthralls men in her island prison has inspired operatic settings by a multitude of composers. Renée Fleming stars in the title role of Rossini’s version, opposite no fewer than six tenors. Tony Award winner Mary Zimmerman returns to direct this new production of a work she describes as “a buried treasure, a box of jewels.”  The fanciful and magical tale, Zimmerman says, “has an epic, enchanted quality and a tremendous visual element.”

Doctor Atomic

Gerald Finley stars as J. Robert Oppenheimer in John Adams’s contemporary masterpiece exploring a momentous episode of modern history: the creation of the atomic bomb.  Directed by Penny Woolcook.

La Bohème

A magnificent cast comes together for Franco Zeffirelli’s iconic production of the Puccini favorite. The exciting young conductor Nicola Luisotti presides over a glorious vocal ensemble led by the mesmerizing Angela Gheorghiu, who sings Mimì at the Met for the first time in twelve years, opposite golden-toned tenor Ramón Vargas as her lover, Rodolfo.

Carmen

One of the most popular operas of all time, Carmen "is about sex, violence, and racism—and its corollary: freedom," says Olivier Award-winning director Richard Eyre about his new production of Bizet’s drama. "It is one of the inalienably great works of art. It’s sexy, in every sense. And I think it should be shocking." El?na Garan?a sings the seductive gypsy of the title for the first time at the Met, opposite Roberto Alagna as the obsessed Don José.

La Cenerentola

El?na Garan?a stars in Rossini’s bel canto Cinderella story, with Lawrence Brownlee as her Prince Charming. Veteran baritone Alessandro Corbelli demonstrates his impeccable comic timing to match the gravitas of Met favorite John Relyea.

Les Contes d’Hoffmann

Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher (South Pacific) directs this new production, returning after the triumph of his Met Barber of Seville. Offenbach’s fictionalized take on the life and loves of the German Romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann is a fascinating psychological journey. Met Music Director James Levine conducts Joseph Calleja in the tour-de-force title role. Anna Netrebko is the tragic Antonia and Alan Held sings the demonic four villains.

La Fille du Régiment

Experience the “exceedingly yummy operatic cake” that was called “the operatic show of the season” by The Times of London when it opened at Covent Garden this past winter. Audiences were dazzled by Natalie Dessay’s fearless coloratura and impeccable comic timing and by Juan Diego Flórez’s remarkable musicality—complete with the famous high Cs.

Hansel and Gretel

Haunting, charming, and a little wicked, the Met’s production returns as the season’s special holiday presentation for families. Miah Persson and Angelika Kirchschlager are the lost siblings. Philip Langridge reprises his outlandish portrayal of the Witch in Humperdinck’s take on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Sung in English and conducted by Fabio Luisi.

This production was originally created for Welsh National Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Lucia di Lammermoor

Anna Netrebko sings the title role of Donizetti’s fragile heroine for the first time at the Met, with tenor Rolando Vilazón as her lover in Mary Zimmerman’s hit production.

Macbeth

Explore this terrorizing classic featuring Željko Lucic and Maria Guleghina as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the new production premiere based on Shakespeare’s original play.

Madama Butterfly

The riveting singing actress Cristina Gallardo-Domâs returns to the title role of Anthony Minghella’s stunning production, a new classic of the Met repertory.

Manon Lescaut

Finnish phenomenon Karita Mattila adds another landmark role to her Met repertory, the free-spirited beauty Manon Lescaut. The story of the magnetic attraction between two young lovers is the perfect vehicle for the soprano’s exhilarating charisma, especially when matched by the ardent tenor of Marcello Giordani.

Peter Grimes

Peter Grimes is under investigation for unthinkable transgressions, yet Benjamin Britten’s probing exploration of the nature of guilt and judgment implicates an entire fishing village. Director John Doyle, a Tony Award® winner for his interpretation of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, makes his Met debut answering the challenges of this modern masterpiece.

Roméo et Juliette

The Metropolitan Opera pairs two of the world’s leading singers, Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna, to bring Shakespeare’s tale of star-crossed lovers to thrilling and heartbreaking life.

La Rondine

Opera’s charismatic real-life duo, Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna, provides the star power to deliver this ravishing romance from the world’s most popular opera composer. Nicolas Joël directs the new production of this gorgeously melodic look at love.

Tosca

Tosca tells the story of three people—a famous opera singer, a free-thinking painter, and a sadistic chief of police—caught in a net of love and politics. Soprano Karita Mattila, recently seen in last season’s Live in HD presentation of Salome, sings the title role for the first time outside her native Finland. Luc Bondy, acclaimed for his imaginative theater and opera productions, directs. The cast also includes Marcelo Álvarez as Cavaradossi and George Gagnidze as Scarpia. Joseph Colaneri conducts.

Turandot

Director Franco Zeffirelli’s breathtaking production of Puccini’s last opera is a favorite of the Met repertoire. Maria Guleghina plays the ruthless Chinese princess of the title, whose hatred of men is so strong that she has all suitors who can’t solve her riddles beheaded. Marcello Giordani sings Calàf, the unknown prince who eventually wins her love and whose solos include the famous “Nessun dorma.”

Listening skills should be stock in trade for musicians, but experienced musicians face the same challenges of concentration and active listening that audiences do.  Timothy Walker’s keynote speech at Great Britain’s ISM (Incorporated Society of Musicians) hopefully didn’t fall on tin ears. Walker, Chief Executive of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, realistically addresses the difficulties musicians and audiences face (even composers, conductors, and professional orchestras) in what should be the simple art of listening.  Lend an ear to his complete address:

Understanding and Developing Listening

28 May 2010

In his keynote speech at our annual conference, Timothy Walker explores the theme of listening in terms of the challenges that face orchestras, particularly as they develop audiences for the future.

Timothy Walker

It is a great pleasure for me to be here with you today to give the keynote address for your conference on ‘Listening’. No doubt you can ‘hear’ me but whether or not you will ‘listen’ is another matter. We are all too familiar with a world that is noisy, a world, where we try to block out sounds that we don’t want to hear, where our listening becomes selective.

Yes, there is a distinction between ‘hearing’ and ‘listening’. It’s the same as the distinction we make between ‘looking’ and ‘seeing’. ‘Listening’, as with ‘seeing’, demands a level of concentration far beyond ‘hearing’ or ‘looking’.

Handel believed that he was the one who taught us how to listen. He told Gluck that the English are only interested in beating time. ‘I have to teach them to listen.’

Interestingly, Stravinsky confesses in his memoirs that his early interest in the orchestra was visual rather than aural. He was attracted by the bright and polished instruments and the sheer spectacle of seeing an orchestra on stage. For him, the visual was an indispensible part of the whole experience. Seeing the bodily effort involved in producing the sound made it all the more vivid for him.

Daniel Barenboim would not agree so readily. In his 2006 Reith Lecture for the BBC he made the point that ‘we now live in a culture where we are bombarded with imagery and information, and are neglecting our ears in favour of our eyes. Everywhere there are competing demands for our attention and so often, somehow, we fail to find the time simply to listen to music for its own sake.’

It was in part, I believe, a response to the ideas expounded in this lecture that The Royal Philharmonic Society established a programme called ‘Hear Here’ in 2008 which operates through a wonderfully interactive website, live concerts throughout the country and programmes on Classic FM.

How much do our players listen? Quite a lot it would seem because they very quickly comment on the concert platforms where they can’t hear their colleagues playing. Many conductors comment on the listening skills of LPO players. Certainly the annual four months of playing for the opera at Glyndebourne is one reason for their heightened listening skills. They are used to hearing, and following, the singers.

But the high stress and constant playing, often of new music or unfamiliar works, must have an impact on the orchestral players’ listening. Shelagh Sutherland, Co-ordinator of Aural Training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, makes the point that over-worked musicians rely on the adrenalin rush to make performances exciting and don’t have sufficient rehearsal time to allow them to get beyond their notes and to really listen to other players.

This is perhaps why the string quartet is the apogee of music making. Four members who spend a life-time together music making, playing the same works over and over again to the point where their part is instinctive and the performance is all about listening to the other parts to make the refined ‘whole’.

When we listen, when we really concentrate on listening, how do we do so without taking on the implications of previous listenings? In other words, how do we keep our ears innocent?

We listen to Britten’s War Requiem and we understand the subject and the emotional content but we take our seat on a British Airways flight and the duet from Lakme no longer has anything to do with the opera. We hear the slow movement of Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto and there is no room for original thought because we see a black and white image of Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard parting at a railway station.

When we teach a new piece of music to our student we are teaching our interpretation of the work. Are we prepared to acknowledge that our student may hear the work differently? Are we prepared to put aside our preconceptions and accept that someone else, a fresh mind, might have an interpretation as valid as our own, however young that fresh mind might be?

Are we then listening to what the composer intended us to hear or what the conductor intends us to hear? You only have to look at www.henrysrecords.com to see the immense difference in the timing of recorded works. A symphony can differ by 10 minutes’ duration. Can this really be possible?

I recall a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall in September 2008. There was a subsequent tour of the programme of Scandinavian countries, which Vladimir Jurowski pulled out of because of the birth of his second child. Rhozdestvensky took over and I reported to Vladimir that with the addition of the Strauss’s Metamorphosen the concert took 25 minutes more than the London performance. Vladimir’s response was simply: ‘Yes, he hears the music differently’.

What does the composer think? We asked our new composer-in-residence, Julian Anderson, who said: ‘What I try to do is not to dumb down but to try to use the sonic surface, the sensual side of listening, as an in-road to get people thinking about other facets as well. The fact is that some music requires more effort, and I think the fear factor is the main problem here, especially in contemporary art music. Some of the clichés that are voiced about new music should be directly addressed – for example the assertion that there is no melody. It depends very much what you mean by a tune. What I should like to do is to expand an audience’s appreciation of what a tune is and what a melody can be. I’d like to awaken their listening to texture, orchestral colour, atmosphere and harmony. One problem in Britain is that there is a great resistance to the idea that music – especially new music – can be viewed as part of an intelligent forum of culture. I go abroad a lot, and it is not a strange idea in France or Germany. What I would like to encourage is thinking as well as listening – active listening. This is all part of making music a component of general culture.’

How are orchestras in the UK developing the listening skills of young people?

We certainly recognise the importance of giving every child the opportunity to hear a live orchestral concert at least once during their school years. All of the orchestras in Britain have signed up to offer this by 2017. We have mapped our current programmes for schools in England and already reach 50% of children. With more schools’ concerts in major centres and the help of chamber orchestras to reach smaller regional centres we believe we can meet our goal.

We prefer that the concerts are at the main public concert halls so that children understand that these are public facilities for their use; that we break down barriers to entering our halls in the hope that the child might encourage the parents to bring the family to a weekend concert, something outside of the school experience. We want to give every child the opportunity to hear the power of an orchestra and to experience the emotional intensity of music making. We want to instill in each child a desire to listen to more music and perhaps to take up a musical instrument.

In all our education programmes we meet with the same response; that music tuition increases the concentration of children for all of their subjects not just the music one. Teachers are convinced that music training – even very basic teaching of rhythm, melody and harmony through simple instruments or singing – has an advantageous effect on higher grades in all subjects.

The LPO’s three FUNharmonic concerts for young children attract a capacity crowd but the listening experience is not just about the concert. The day starts well before and goes on for up to an hour and a half after the concert. The hall’s public spaces are given over to a variety of musical activities for the young concert-goers that are designed as an integral part of the FUNharmonic’s experience. There is something to suit every child’s age and interests.

Of course this is all meant to be fun, but it’s also designed with a specific educational objective; the child’s future musical development. The boy wishing to play the trumpet is shown how to purse his lips and blow. Then he’s handed the mouthpiece and encouraged to use the same pursed lip to blow into it. Only when he’s practiced enough to produce a sound is he given the instrument . The result is that he can produce a few notes, and feels satisfied with his success. Hopefully, he has the confidence to pester his parents to allow him to learn the instrument. We have information available to take away that provides contact details for teachers, purchase of instruments and so on.

I have observed with other ensembles that we have taken to hospitals, nursing homes, schools and prisons that often the best response from the audience is for the very contemporary works rather than what we might consider to be the easier, more melodic classics.

We need to put aside our preconceptions about classical music and understand that for a young audience their interests are much more fluid, much more eclectic. Recently the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment presented Beethoven at the Roundhouse in London. It was a new and different young audience that would not have attended the concert at the Royal Festival Hall. They could come and go as they pleased, talk, drink, and whatever. It was a huge success.

But I do wonder, were they listening as we might define ‘listening’ here today? Or were they moved by the rhythmic pulse and the power of the sound of many instruments? Could their response have been more Handel’s claim that we like to beat in time or Stravinsky’s fascination with the visual colour of an orchestra? Were they hearing the sound rather than listening intently to the music?

We have become accustomed to the late 19^th century practice of paying homage to music and its execution. We don’t think it appropriate to talk, eat or drink during the performance, or even clap between movements. We have been trained to accept the best conditions for concentrating on listening. Are our experiments to take our music to the young pandering to what we perceive to be their interests? Are we so concerned about getting a young audience, creating the audience of the future, that we would prejudice the very music we are promoting? Are we being regressive in not insisting that the concert venue should be totally silent?

These are issues for discussion and I hope you may have the time to do so during your conference.

Can I leave you with the thoughts of two other leading British musicians.

The violinist, Nicola Benedetti says: ‘Listening well is a discipline, one that can become lazy unless we are reminded of the energy and focus that it requires’

And the pianist Paul Lewis says: ‘Hearing is something that most of us are fortunate enough to be able to do with no problem. However, to listen perceptively – without preconceptions or expectations – is a real challenge for anybody, and is something that requires patience, skill, and an infinite amount of practice!’

If you have listened, then thank you. If you have only heard the sound of a voice, then I rest my case.

Timothy Walker
Chief Executive of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) and Chair of the Association of British Orchestras (ABO)

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Six Teaching Tips for Music Teachers & Parents to encourage active listening (this is from me, Mary Ann Stewart, inspired by Mr. Walker’s address):

1. Ask kids to listen closely to a musical selection with their eyes open; then listen to the same selection with their eyes closed. Have them discover and discuss the differences. (also see the corollary to this activity in #6 below)

2. Divide the class into listening teams. Ask each group to focus on a different element: the melody, rhythm, harmony, tempo, instrumentation, lyrics, etc. and discuss afterward their findings. Then have them re-listen to the work, from various perspectives, and swap teams. This listening activity can be done on easy to more sophisticated levels, depending on the group. This presents a challenge not only of hearing but of remembering the sequence of musical events, and also of learning to articulate in words what they hear.

3. Ask the class to conduct the music they are listening to. This was a technique Robert Abramson used at Juilliard, when he asked the entire class of advanced music students to simultaneously conduct in order to discover the meter during live classroom student performances. It was hilarious to see that many of these Juilliard music majors could not discern the meter during these performances,  because the performers themselves were inadequately conveying the metric flow. Dance rhythms from a Bach suite could be performed as rhythmically vague as a Debussy nocturne!  When this happened, Abramson had the entire class perform the Baroque dance on which the piece was based. The newly enlightened pianist was then asked to play again the work, this time with an understanding of the underlying dance pattern and the metrics of the piece.  This revealing exercise made Abramson’s point that the performer has the responsibility of understanding and respecting the differences in musical styles and in conveying the metric and musical flow accordingly. Otherwise the listener doesn’t have a fighting chance at understanding the music, which melts amorphously like the Salvador Dali watch, and fades into the Debussian “Nuages” of our consciousness.

4. Ask kids to move to the music, conveying either the feelings the music provokes in them, or what they interpret the music to be expressing. You will be amazed at how instinctive young children are at understanding the underlying gestures, emotions, and movements of the music.  Just as babies recognize mood, emotional expressions, and physical gestures long before they understand language, so will young children respond with authenticity and feeling when asked to listen to the music “with their whole bodies.”  They “get” music a lot easier than adults, because their ears at this age are little sponges on steroids, soaking up the world around them.

5. Give your kids (and yourself) some periods of total quiet during the day. (And turn off that TV and stereo at night too!). We live in a noisy, nonstop roar of invasive sounds.  Without periods of silence, kids learn to automatically shut down their hearing in order to protect themselves from the noisy onslaught of the world around them.  So surround active listening experiences with quiet times, so kids learn when and “how to turn on their ears.” Otherwise, the defense mechanism of shutting out the noisy world and learning “how not to listen” is the result of a non-stop background of sound (even music).

6. Link the eyes and ears for intensive listening. This can best be experienced at live musical events. Try to link the visual source with the sound, so your eyes help you listen. Just as Stravinsky could hear the music better by watching the instruments and performers, so can we. That is one reason attending live  performances is always better than recorded media. A child will experience a live concert with his whole being and memory apparatus. Listening to a recording is not the same thing. The intensity and the immediateness of live music are essential. Let the eyes assist the ears, rather than distract them. It takes visual as well as aural discipline to sharpen our listening skills. Following the symphonic flow of events by watching the instruments and performers in an orchestra can be a breathtaking listening experience. 

If you thought boomwhackers were just for kids, think again.
Better still, listen to the percussion group Plastik Musik in their astounding Boomwhacker performance:

The first time I met Craig Ramsell, creator of the Boomwhackers, was  in Phoenix, Arizona, about 15 years ago at a music education conference.  At the time, I knew his newly created pitched plastic tubes called Boomwhackers would be destined for a big role in music classrooms. In fact, it took the music education world by storm, and there is scarcely a music classroom anywhere today in the USA without a set of Boomwhackers.  A whole new wave of Boomwhackers educational materials soon flooded the market, including books, games, musicals, and CDs, boosting the popularity of these colorful pitched instrument tubes.

  The Boomwhackers boom was further inspired by the popularity of the off-Broadway percussion sensation called STOMP (who used rubber tubes in one of their famous routines).  Like STOMP, which is still going strong in New York and on worldwide tours, the Boomwhackers craze continues to invade the planet.

But if you are one of the few people on earth without a set of Boomwhackers, mention the PromoCode “Boom” when you order any set of Boomwhackers and/or related Boomwhacker materials at www.musicmotion.com for a 15% discount (offer good through July 15).  Don’t miss Music in Motion’s Boomwhacker Flashcards: For Movement, Singing, Ear Training, and Pre-Reading Games, which I created for building musicianship, movement, and reading skills.

Enjoy front row seats at the latest operatic productions from Milan’s La Scala and Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu, as well as from other European venues, all in the comfort of your local movie theater.  Join opening night audiences throughout the world to experience these outstanding operas in digital HD.  Oh brave new world that has such wonders in it. . .and for only $25 per ticket. 

Opera in Cinema LIVE! broadcasts for the rest of the season:

April 21, 2010

Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio)

Live in HD from the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona
Conducted by Ivor Bolton, directed by Christof Loy, starring Diana Damrau

April 29, 2010

Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra

Live in HD from Teatro alla Scala, Milan
Conducted by Daniel Barenboim, directed by Federico Tiezzi,
starring Plácido Domingo, Ferruccio Furlanetto

May 26, 2010

Wagner’s Das Rheingold

Live in HD from Teatro alla Scala, Milan
Conducted by Daniel Barenboim , directed by Guy Cassiers
starring René Pape

July 1, 2010

Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades

Live in HD from the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona
Conducted by Michael Boder, directed by Gilbert Deflo, starring Ben Heppner

In addition to the LIVE broadcasts from La Scala and the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the new season will also include LIVE HD recordings from the Salzburg Festival, Valencia’s Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater and more. Check www.operaincinema.com for the complete upcoming program and to locate a theater near you.

TEACHING TIP:  And for more opera in movie theaters, see The Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series that also brings live operas from the Met to cinema theaters across the world. Teachers, don’t miss this opportunity to introduce students to opera, and avail yourself of the excellent music education resources on opera education, synopses, etc. that the Met offers.