Teacher's Guide

Let’s Tell A Story TEACHER’S GUIDE Very Young People’s Concerts Knoxville: January 28, 2016 Maryville: January 29, 2016 Music Can Make Your Life Complete Table of Contents Lucas Richman Meet the Conductor ............................................................... 2 Notes on Pieces and Composers ........................................ 3-8 The Birthday Present Anatomy of a Symphony Orchestra ...................................... 9 Lucas Richman Meet the Performers and Musicians ............................... 10-11 Activities and Lessons ..................................................... 12-14 O T M F verture to he arriage of igaro Concert Program ............................................................. 15-16 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Audience Job Description / Acknowledgements ................. 17 Playground Escapades Lucas Richman Blow the Man Down Traditional / arr. Lucas Richman Flight of the Bumblebee Hi! I’m Picardy Penguin. Follow me through this Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov guide for interesting musical facts and history. First, we will learn about the conductor. Peter and the Wolf A conductor is a person who leads the orchestra. You can learn Sergei Prokofiev more about conductors on the next page of this guide! Look for this symbol throughout the guide for specific Please note that this publication may be copied things to listen for at the concert. and used for educational purposes only. You are encouraged to copy the concert program on pages And this symbol means you should sing 15-16 for use with your students in the classroom. along with us at the concert! 1 Meet the Conductor Steven Karidoyanes grew up in Boston, where his Greek parents taught him and his sisters and brother to love music, friends and family. He was also taught the importance of hard work and dedication. His father owned a sandwich shop where young Steven worked as a teenager, and it was there that he learned to “treat [people] so well that they have to come back and bring family and friends…” From that idea developed Mr. Karidoyanes’ philosophy of concern for audiences and other musicians with whom he performs. Maestro Karidoyanes has conducted the Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra for more than twenty years. He is also Music Director of the New England Conservatory Youth Symphony, leading concerts not only in Boston but in tours of Italy, Greece, Costa Rica, Eastern Europe and Ireland. There’s more: Mr. Karidoyanes conducts Masterworks Chorale, which performs at Harvard University, and is a regular understudy conductor for The Boston Pops. In addition to all those conducting jobs, he also finds time to teach future conductors and compose his own music. And, he works as a classical music announcer/producer, having worked for NPR radio stations in Boston, North Carolina and Indiana. For his performance as guest conductor of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, let’s give Maestro Karidoyanes a big welcome to Tennessee! The conductor of an orchestra is the leader. Conductors must know a great deal about music, the great composers, and their works. They must also have the skills and personality to direct many players at once and to help the players work together as a team. Conductors understand how each instrument works and the special qualities of each instrument. Most importantly, they learn each piece of music well enough to guide all the players in exciting performances! 2 Music Can Make Your Life Complete Lucas Richman (1964-Present) “Music Can Make Your Life Complete” is the theme song for the KSO’s Very Young People’s Concerts. The composer is Lucas Richman. Join our guest performer to sing the refrain of this piece. Often conductors hold a baton, a stick that they use to mark the beats of the music for the orchestra to follow. Do you see the baton that Maestra Jo- ann Falletta is using? Conductors are addressed by the title Maestro, for men, or Maestra, for women. This Italian word means “teacher.” 3 The Birthday Present Lucas Richman (1964-Present) The Birthday Present This song tells the story of someone who has I was going to a birthday party to find a gift for a friend’s birthday. But I didn’t have a present for my friend. What does the composer do to make I was running late and becoming nervous the music sound like the person is That I just might not arrive until the end. worried? (He writes it in a minor key.) Oh, what should I do? How does the singer make the sound What should I do? What should I do? more dramatic? (She sings it an octave higher.) If I arrived with no gift then my friend might be sad, The composer adds a fast jazz rhythm But being late to the fun also would be bad. for string bass, drums and brass, to That would be so very, very, make the music sound more nervous. very, very, very, very, very bad. The strings and a solo oboe help us So, what did I do? hear how the person is thinking of an What did I do? What did I do? answer to her problem. Well, I wrote my friend a birthday song Finally, the music ends like the story As I made my way to the party throng, does—happy and triumphant! And I sang my birthday gift on time! 4 Overture to The Marriage of Figaro Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Born in Salzburg, Austria, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy who, at age three, began to play the harpsichord by watching his older sister’s lessons. By the time he was five he could play both harpsichord and violin quite well, and he began to write his first music. His father and teacher, Leopold, helped him write down his pieces until he learned how to do it himself. Leopold took his two children on concert tours throughout Europe from the time that Wolfgang was six years old. Wolfgang continued to amaze his family and those who met him, not only by playing music that his father taught him—he could hear a new piece once or twice and then play it perfectly (or write it down) by memory! Today, Mozart is one of the best-known and most popular composers from the Classical period of music. He wrote an astonishingly large amount of music, including works for piano, for small groups of instruments and for orchestra. He also wrote operas (his first at age eleven), and you will hear the introduction to one of these at the KSO concert. Sadly, this musical genius became ill and died when he was only 35 years old. The Marriage of Figaro, for which Mozart wrote the music, is a comic opera and one Q. What is an opera? of the most widely performed operas in the A. An opera is a kind of performance in which actors sing world. It tells the story of Figaro, a servant all or most of the words of a play with music performed in a palace in Spain, and his upcoming by an orchestra. marriage to Susanna. Before the wedding, there is much silliness among all the Q. What is an overture? characters as they try to sort out love’s A. An overture is a piece of music played at the beginning mysteries. of a play, musical or opera. Often you will hear in an overture short sections of music from the large work Listen as the orchestra sets the mood that will follow, but that is not the case with Mozart’s of the opera. Can you hear people overture to his opera The Marriage of Figaro. running around acting silly? 5 Playground Escapades Blow the Man Down Lucas Richman (1964-Present) Traditional / Arr. Lucas Richman (1964-Present) Lucas Richman wrote Playground Escapades to tell the story of activities that can happen during recess at school. Listen to the notes move up and down in small steps, or in big jumps (intervals), and how the speed of the music (tempo) gets faster or slower, to tell the story. Can you hear… …string instruments jumping rope or Blow the Man Down is the type of song known as a playing tetherball? sea shanty—a work song once sung by sailors or …bassoons and string basses playing pirates. Sea shanties were used to pass the time and hopscotch? to help a team of workers move together in a smooth rhythm, before modern machines and …races being run by flutes, French horns steam engines replaced the hard labor of hoisting and snare drum? huge sails or rowing, as well as other tasks. The …the brass section misbehaving like a big verses of these work songs would change from one bully and starting a fight? time to the next, according to the story being made up as the singers worked; but the tune and chorus …the teacher, played by the English horn? remained the same. 6 Flight of the Bumblebee Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was a Many people who have never heard of Rimsky- Russian composer born into an Korsakov still recognize a short excerpt from aristocratic family with a long line of one of his operas. The excerpt is known as military and naval service. An older brother was a very Flight of the Bumblebee, and the opera is The high-ranking officer in the Imperial Russian Navy who Tale of Tsar Saltan. The story is based on a helped young Nikolai establish a naval career at a very Russian fairy tale. young age. Nikolai loved the ocean, and to travel to faraway lands to learn new things; but the best part Once upon a time… about his various jobs in the navy was a good salary There was a young prince whose cruel aunts that allowed him to follow his real passion, music.

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