Classical music concert just for kids
Guest conductor Peter Moore believes that people should start learning about music from a young age and that a child’s first experience in a concert hall should be memorable and not boring. The Babies’ Proms engages young children by encouraging them to get out of their seats and move with the music.
Read on to find out how the SSO uses innovative ideas in this educational and entertaining concert for children.
Jump, march, act like a tree
That is what kids get to do at SSO's Babies' Proms, a classical music concert just for them
Forget the black tie and tails, and if you are not a big fan of classical music, don't worry about falling asleep.
At this Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) concert, the musicians will be in T-shirts, playing in a hall full of balloons, and the conductor expects the audience to dance in the aisles.
The SSO's annual Babies' Proms, tailored for children six years old and younger, is back for the eighth year.
'The emphasis is not on the music, it's about having a good time when music is happening,' says London-born conductor Peter Moore, better known as 'Uncle Peter' to his young audience.
The guest conductor and the SSO will be playing five shows, all sold out, at Victoria Concert Hall on Dec 11 and 12. Each show lasts about an hour, during which the orchestra will perform short bites of classical music, from Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik to Tchaikovsky's Polonaise. No excerpt lasts more than two minutes.
'It's got to be fast, it's got to keep moving,' says Moore.
And as the music plays, the audience is encouraged to get out of their seats and move with it. Children are told to jump to percussion beats, act like a tree when the music sways and march when a march is played.
'Sometimes, I think the parents are bewildered by how free it all is and at all the noise,' the conductor says with a laugh.
'But for two- to four-year-olds in a concert hall, it's so unfair to expect them to be totally quiet and listening,' says the father of two grown-ups who has been based in Perth since 1984.
In 2002, he was invited to bring over the idea of the Babies' Proms from that Australian city, where the concert has been an annual affair for the past 25 years.
He has been a professional musician for 41 years and is principal conductor of the Western Australian Youth Orchestra, which plays the proms there. It was started by the youth orchestra in the 1980s and when he became conductor, he kept it going.
The idea behind the proms is to ensure that a child's first experience in a concert hall is memorable, not boring, he explains.
People should start to learn about music from an early age, says Moore, who is also a senior lecturer in music at the University of Western Australia and was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 2000 for services to music education.
However, in his experience, most concerts for young children still tend to be 'very restricted'.
He says: 'You have to be very quiet and behave, which I thought produced a lot of negative feelings.'
The proms were a unique answer to the question of how to keep a child still at a concert - don't. Work with their need to run around instead.
There is method in this seeming madness. The T-shirts that the musicians wear are colour-coded according to section - the woodwind might be in green and strings in yellow - to help children associate colour and function.
The names of the instruments are made clear and the children are invited on stage to examine them during the last song. Each excerpt of music is also introduced to the audience as it is played.
'The idea is an educational concert, but also an entertainment concert,' says the conductor. 'As long as they get one idea, then I've done my job. It could be the colours, instruments, music, noise - as long as something they take away from the concert hall is positive.'
It is not just the children who benefit from the experience, he adds. There are always a few parents who come and express an interest in music that has been awakened by the fun romp.
'You're never going to turn every person in the street into a lover of classical music, but it's an easier way of finding the percentage that might be sympathetic,' he says.
With free balloon sculptures and pre-concert activities for the young, the event does sound like a ton of fun. But as nothing is perfect, could it not fail to move some of the tots who might burst out crying during the show?
'All the time,' says Moore, a veteran hand with wailing kids. 'But that's the point of it, you see. It doesn't matter.'
Source: 25 November 2009, The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. Permission required for reproduction.