Students from several Bellingham elementary schools learned the relationship between music and story while attending a live performance of “Peter and the Wolf“ by the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra (BSO) at the Mount Baker Theatre on Thursday, February 27.
The concert was part of the BSO youth engagement educational concert series. The presentation was geared toward elementary students and offered the chance for many students to witness their first-ever live orchestral concert.
Columbia, Lowell, Northern Heights, Sunnyland and the Bellingham Family Partnership Program each had students in attendance. They were joined by other public, private and homeschool students from around Whatcom and Skagit counties, filling Mount Baker Theatre to near capacity.
“The instruments in the orchestra are joined by narrated words that help the story to come alive,” said a classroom guide prepared by the BSO. Each orchestra instrument family (strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion) participates in the story, in harmony with the spoken words of the narrator.
The BSO conductor, Yaniv Attar, introduced each character and associated instrument(s) for students, isolating the sounds of each character before starting the story so that students understood how to listen. Peter (string section), Bird (flute), Duck (oboe), Cat (clarinet), Grandpa (bassoon), Wolf (horns) and Hunters (timpani drums) comprised the story’s characters.
Continue reading and see more photos here.
All photos by Andrew Forhan, courtesy of Bellingham Public Schools Communications
