Found, 2/13/16

The plan is to spend the season of Lent looking for signs of the Divine in the world around me, and to share what I find.

Re: music, and what finds its way in, and what finds its way out:

It does not matter what else happened that day, or is going to happen, or did not happen. If Tchaikovsky wrote a symphony 150 years ago, and wrote triumph into the final pages of the final movement, it is possible for an orchestra to play those final pages and create triumph right there on the stage. Not a ghost-triumph, but the real thing, living and breathing. I use the word magic a lot, but I think this is one of the reasons why. It is possible to become that thing written into the music for a time, whatever else you are. 

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Found, Day 28

I play sometimes with a not-quite-local community orchestra. On scattered Tuesday nights throughout the year I join Husband for a 180-mile round trip plus 2 ½ hours of rehearsal. It has become part of our routine over the last few years, even though the first year we lived in this Midwestern town I did not play violin at all. That first year I thought I had left music behind me.

That first rehearsal—after such a long break, after thinking my life as a violinist was over—it was like finding a piece of myself I hadn't known was missing. I won't say that reincorporating that piece has been easy, but it seems to be necessary. And it has grown—more than I thought possible.

I have maybe—hopefully—grown with it. These Tuesday nights are tiring but invigorating. The schedule an uneasy thing, but the music more enjoyable than ever before in my life. Because the thing is, the music is still the music no matter what the circumstances, and I get to be a part of it. There was a time I would have viewed my part-time community orchestra member status as a failure, but given what I found getting to this place—what a find.

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Light: 12/2/14

Driving home from a rehearsal or performance late at night on a rural two-lane road—we’ve done it many times over the last 18 years. Trying to keep each other awake. Almost always a 90-120 mile drive, and almost always I last until the last 20 minutes. Almost always Husband drives, for exactly that reason.

These drives are marked by light: the glow of painted lines on the road, the reflection of our headlights in the eyes of deer. The flicker of fireflies, of lightning, of stars. The spread of moonlight across a field, the spread of pink above a distant city. Shooting stars and Northern Lights. Snow and rain and fog pulled into and lit up by the tractor beam of headlights. These are the backdrop to many conversations, stories, arguments.

Maybe it’s just my tired brain, struck by this at the end of one of these drives, but here’s the thing: all that dark you move through, all you see is light. How obvious, how extraordinary.

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Thankful, 2014: I Was Wrong...

I was not too tired for rehearsal. The music brought me back.

We are not done with living room dance parties.

That is snow in the air, and not a cloud in the sky. (Look at all that glitter.)

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Medley, 10/13/14

1. Tuesday evening: moonrise. A not-quite-full moon, pale and round and flat. The sky, too, is clear and pale. Peaceful. This week is busy, like so many of the rest of them, but the sky remains open and peaceful, changing and unchanging.

2. Later Tuesday evening: orchestra rehearsal, all Beethoven. The 7^th Symphony, and Leonore Overture No. 3, and the Piano Concerto No. 4. I’m not sure how many times I’ve played any of these pieces, but the past performances are present, always. The piano concerto, for instance: I once got to play this with Daniel Barenboim as both soloist and conductor. The intensity and concentration of that performance, it turns out, is burned into my psyche. As we run through the piece with tonight’s soloist I can hear both the present version and the one from all those years ago. And this music is so good. 

3. Wednesday morning: I’m sitting alone in the waiting room at the dentist’s. All three kids are having checkups at once. I hear Youngest’s voice—she is singing “Let it Go” with all her heart. I imagine her face, and the way she must be moving in the dentist’s chair as she swoops for the high notes and dips for the low. “The cold never bothered me anyway—” I think she especially loves that line, and the meaning she intuits in it. The hygienist tells me later that they waited at the doorway of Youngest's  room until she finished the song. They did not want to interrupt.

4. Saturday: the last birthday cake of the season, chocolate with cream cheese frosting, sprinkled with dark chocolate curls and golden sugar. It struck me, looking at the finished cake, that the frosting works as a sealer, holding in moisture, at least as much as it sweetens and decorates. I’ve always thought of the frosting as the best part; I’ve never before thought of it as a kind of armor.

5. All week, each weekday afternoon: The Violin Project. These kids are young, and they're tired at the end of the day. It is a difficult time for intense focus. The room is often noisy. I have been trying to get them to be quieter—especially while I am tuning their violins. But this week I suggested that they use tuning time (which for them is waiting time) to help each other—second year students could help beginners with bow holds, playing positions, rhythms; older kids in general could help younger; second year kids could join forces to puzzle out new skills and pieces. The noise turned into something special. This is what I am looking for, at least as much as I am seeking order. What could happen, if we all keep learning and growing like this? 

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More than Enough

Tuesday morning:

“There are a whole lot of people in this world whose job it is to make you feel discontent. Our economy is kind of built around all of us feeling like we don’t have enough. Ever.”

I don’t know if he really heard me. I got the “I know, I know,” but really he was too angry about all the limitations of his unbelievably-amazing-and-perfect-six-months-ago birthday present.

Did I get across to him how much I struggle with it, too? Did he hear me say that we each have to find a way of looking around us and seeing enough? It is part, I think, of the daily battle.

*     *     *

We took Youngest off gluten and dairy a week ago on a what-if whim, hoping to find relief from her constant stomach aches. She has gone a week now with only two stomach aches. Figuring out new ways to eat has been a challenge, but we’re trying to just go with it. Gluten-free loaves of bread from the grocery store—no, dairy-free cheese substitute—no. Expensive, plus she won’t eat them. My plain old corn bread recipe with two straight substitutions—yes. So we’re rethinking food. Trying to focus on what works while being honest about all the “nos” we’re coming up against.

There’s something very familiar about this path.

*     *     *

Also Tuesday morning:

In the face of way too much to get done, a black bean chocolate cake recipe. (A magical recipe—here.) The scents of chocolate and orange and vanilla and coffee all around.

Sibelius 5 playing over and over, so I can absorb it into my soul and mind for rehearsal tonight.

The memory of last night’s wind, and the way it made the bedroom shades poof out when it blew especially hard. Through the glass, storm windows and all. (Thankful for you, old house—I actually really like you this way. Thankful for you also, down comforter.)

The field of frost flowers and grasses on the window.

The Queen Anne’s Lace behind the house, nothing but skeleton now, arms still held up to the sky, open to gather what comes.

The moments, suspended, when everything—in spite of everything else—felt like more than enough. This is how I will fight.

*     *     *

Wednesday evening, now:

I’ll be honest: today was a long, tired, tiring day—one of those days in which time and chaos and humanness simply overtook everything else. Finally I have the chance to post what I wrote yesterday. And I will. Because even though the only thing I can think of to do in the face of today is go to bed, yesterday’s more-than-enough still counts.

That, too, is part of the fight.

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Q, Quasar

Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68

 

It’s there in the opening, that wandering. Again at the end of the first movement. And in those chords at letter Q in the fourth movement, the spot our conductor in college had us start over and over. “Q, quasar,” again and again. I loved his choice of words. It was a transition moment, with chords that sounded as mysterious and distant as outer space, the lead-in to the final triumph of the piece. It was a spot to pay attention to, not only because it needed to be done right. When the music gets so that you’re not really sure where you are, it’s a good sign that you should pay careful attention. The composer is about to take you somewhere.

 

And now, listening to Brahms’ 1st Symphony this morning, I hear it shot-through with wandering. Not aimless, but full of searching. Heartfelt. Soulful. Shifting between sure-footedness and uncertainty. A working-through, a…what?  A working-out of something?

 

Well of course. Did you forget? What is music like this if not a working-out of themes? You knew that. Did you think it was all just a mental exercise?

 

Maybe I did. It seems like I continually have to re-teach myself things I already knew.

 

It was a deliberate decision to listen to this music this morning. I wanted to remind myself of that other-worldliness at Q. That wandering. I had forgotten, somehow, that it wasn’t the only place, just the last and most nebulous. I love pointing this kind of moment out to my students. “Listen. What’s going to happen? What is the composer doing here?” And here, somewhere around 51:23, you’re sure that whatever’s coming will be big. Listen to how it builds. When you get to 52:15 it’s one of those moments you want so badly, have waited for since the start of the piece. When you finally arrive it almost hurts.

 

Maybe it’s so satisfying because in real life not only are these moments rare, they don’t always have the same kind of definition. And they seem to happen within the context of a three-ring circus (at least three rings), which means you don’t get to drown yourself in those glorious brass chords for very long. Then again, even Brahms moves on.

 

I chose this particular music this morning because I find myself in a wonderfully good place after spending several years in a very hard one. I don’t know how to write about it at this point—I expect that to take time. At the very least I can tell you that I have found myself the recipient of a miracle. And it’s so good. I’m enjoying the goodness, enjoying that I have some room to heal. But here’s the thing: I don’t know how to heal any more than I knew how to go through the stuff that necessitated healing. Or maybe I know in part, but not enough to make it go any faster. And it’s been a long time since I pretended I was patient.

 

So I find myself considering what I know about art:

 

How it’s in those wandering-est moments that you should pay attention. They usually mean you’re being taken someplace new.

 

How when you don’t understand it’s helpful to be quiet and listen. And watch. Absorb all you can.

 

How Brahms wanders, how beautiful it is, and how wandering isn’t quite wandering after all.

 

After all, the spot I’ve thought about most through the years is rehearsal letter Q.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Listen (Play It the Way You Would Sing It)

Family Camp a few weeks ago: we were singing, and Youngest crawled into my lap. When she pressed her head against my chest I must have stopped singing, wondering if she was okay.

She sat up slightly. “Keep singing.” Then she pressed her ear against my chest. That’s when I realized she was listening, feeling the vibrations of my voice.

I asked her about it later. “Were you listening to me sing?”

“Yeah. I could kind of hear you differently. Like, ‘Doooooooooooooh’” she held her hands out by either side of her head and shook them slightly to illustrate.

    *     *     *

I remember as a child calling my mom for something; she was upstairs, I was downstairs. And once while I called out, “Mo-ommm!” my lips formed a spit bubble, and the word sounded different. Soon I was trying to make a bubble every time I called “Mom!” and then I tried the word with my hands over my ears, then with my fingers stuck in my ears, then one-eared, then ears rapidly covered and uncovered. I don’t remember when my mom showed up to see what was the matter. By the time she got there I can’t imagine I knew what I’d wanted. I was too busy playing with sound, listening to my voice in all its permutations.

I wonder, now, how many times that happened.

    *     *     *

The summer between my junior and senior year of college I attended a wonderful music festival in the mountains of Colorado. It was a fabulous opportunity—9 weeks of intense orchestra playing, two programs a week of important repertoire, much of which I had never before played. What I kept to myself while I was there was that I was there as an alternate. Second (or maybe 3^rd?) choice, and I didn’t want anybody else to suspect that maybe I didn’t really belong there. I practiced a lot, but there’s only so much cramming you can do in 2 ½-3 days.

What helped me more than anything was learning a new way to listen.

Maybe a deeper way says it better. I don’t know how to describe it, exactly, except to say that I learned to tune in to the other instruments, and to the orchestra as a whole, in a way I never had before. I needed to do more than simply play my part at the same time as everybody else. Really participating meant a kind of listening that followed along with my peers. I had to anticipate, respond, join in.

*     *     *

Playing on automatic is frighteningly easy. Finger here, finger here, note, note, note. This-then-that. When I was a child and teachers were trying to get me to engage with the music, they most often told me to play it the way I would sing it, or to sing along with myself as I played.

It works.

Singing along with yourself in your head makes for playing that is engaged, aware, alive. It creates music that communicates and responds.

That’s something more than playing with the right timing, or being completely in tune.

And I’ve been thinking that this is something that extends into the rest of life. I think about basic interactions, and conversations, and relationships, and it’s true of them as well: hearing is good. Listening and understanding is even better. But listening in a way that is active and engaged, that follows the other person as if you were singing a duet together—anticipating where the other person is going and moving-with, but at the same time always ready, responsive, for the quick 180s and subtle inflections you never expected—that’s the kind of interaction or conversation or relationship you remember and crave and strive for.

What would that be like, living it the way you would sing it?

Some inspiration for you (Leontyne Price and Carlo Bergonzi, Aida, "O terra addio." 5 ½ minutes, but feels longer, in the best of ways.)

 

 

 

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10 Bits of (Suzuki Institute) Magic

1. "I'll try"
2.  Watching Middle chop in Fiddling class
3.  Work = fun
4.  Youngest's gusto-filled up-bow accents
5.  Fresh ways of seeing and hearing
6. Being together
7.  Music that makes you laugh out loud
8. Sitting in the middle of an orchestra fortissimo
9. "Devil Went Down to Georgia"
10. Friendships

Oh, and 11--because we can't forget the frogs.

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Crawl Inside

Last night, cleaning up in the kitchen, I caught the tail end of Bruckner 8. I didn’t know about Bruckner until college, but the first time I read through his 7^th Symphony I knew I had been waiting to hear and play this music all my life. It is music I wish I could crawl inside of, especially those big, glorious endings.

I wanted to share it with you—this ending I heard at the end of a long day, after casting about with  a prayer that amounted to show me something beautiful. Remind me.

The music was beautiful. I got to crawl inside it just a little bit, and then I finished loading the dishwasher and  got on YouTube. And I found this version. The coda (ending) starts at 4:00, and the piece ends about 2 ½ minutes later, and there’s a moment when the music stops, before the conductor lowers his baton—watch his face. Do you see it? Something of a crumbling, a moment suspended between two worlds, and  finally release—it is done. He was deep inside that music. I have felt what I saw on his face, although not as often as I'd like. Making art doesn’t always work like that, not in my experience, at least. There are too many things that can get in the way. But sometimes it does work that way and you find yourself deep inside, and that is a wonderful, soul-feeding moment.

I’m thinking now of a favorite passage in Winnie-the-Pooh when Pooh gets stuck half-in, half-out of Rabbit’s hole. Christopher Robin tells him they will have to wait until he gets thinner for his friends to pull him out:

     “I’m afraid no meals,” said Christopher Robin, “because of getting thin quicker. But we will read to you.” 

      Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn’t because he was so tightly stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he said:

     “Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?”

I figure I can look at art as an escape, or a distraction, or even just background, but I know better. I think in reality it is more like water or air—sustaining, life-giving, essential. A reminder. A place to crawl inside of. Whether we are Wedged Bears in Great Tightness or not.

Next time you find something beautiful, show somebody else. And maybe tell me about it, too.

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Pops

The orchestra I play with is giving a pops concert this weekend.

There was a time I would have groaned about that. I would have assured myself and everyone around me that I had no time for cheesy stuff.

But the truth is, I think pops concerts are really fun.

*     *     *

The truth is, I accompanied my parents to operas and ballets and orchestra concerts, and yes, I grew up on lots and lots of Mozart and Bach. But there is way more to the story. More often than not, my mom kept jazz playing on the dining room stereo, and when we went as a family to listen to live music, it seems to me now that it was usually jazz. Usually outdoors, usually on a terrace somewhere along the Mississippi River.

Beginning in seventh grade I took to raiding the collection of tapes my mom’s bass students had given her of the music they liked to listen to. Her studio was not limited to, but certainly well-populated by, high school boys. So while my dream-piece to play through junior high and high school was the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, I also listened to a ton of Led Zeppelin.

And summer meant Minneapolis Pops Orchestra concerts at Lake Harriet.

We accompanied my parents to pops concerts countless times over the years. It’s hard to say which was the backdrop—the music, or everything else. Half the time (at least) I was in my own world. But the music, the people, the atmosphere—all of it mixed together into its own special thing.

What that means is that playing music from “My Fair

Lady” brings back the taste and smell of popcorn and strawberry ice cream and the sound of sailboats clanking in the marina. “West Side Story” is full of not just scenes from the movie but also games of Uno played on a maize-colored blanket, conversations with other musicians' kids, and grapes and carrot sticks and sandwiches pulled from an Igloo cooler. Sousa marches carry with them the hope of being chosen to lead the children’s parade with the drum, smiling strangers clapping their hands,  my parents watching for my sister and me from the orchestra on the band shell stage. And how many works, I wonder, are connected in my memory to the threat of a storm, watching blue-black clouds moving in, wondering if we would need to take shelter and where we would go if we did?

The music is linked to probably every summer of my life: the summers I babysat other musicians’ kids—the little boy who liked to throw rocks in the lake and pointed at every airplane that passed overhead, the other little boy who was not content to hold my hand when we walked over to get popcorn but would slowly move his hand up my arm to play with the skin on my elbow. The summer I worked at the Refectory, scooping ice cream (huge scoops balanced on sugar cones, just 95¢) and leaning over the counter to take orders. Summers when I was in college, and went along only to find somewhere to hide with a book. Summers with my own children, even, finding Nana and Grandpa on stage in order to wave at them, playing in the park up the hill, marveling at the sight of a cat on a leash.

All of it mingles inside of me. Makes something new.

This is why you cannot tell me that any kind of music (or art or literature) is dead, that certain types are worthless, or irrelevant, or unapproachable.

There is always interaction of some sort. What you heard, what you saw—it is always mixed with what surrounded you when you heard it (or saw it or read it.) It mixes further with the thoughts in your head, the state of your heart, the way your body felt at the time. Then it goes even deeper and mixes in your memory with the questions it raised or answered, the feelings it aroused or quelled. In that moment, and in all that mixing, this piece of art that began outside of you becomes something new—co-created between composer and musician and listener (or artist and viewer, or writer and reader.)

And if it is something new each time somebody hears or sees or reads, it is always relevant. Always alive.

*     *     *

On the concert this weekend, and new to me, and beautiful, is this. Hope you enjoy it.

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Happy 4th of July

A little music for you today:  the New York Philharmonic playing Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man"

And for fun, this seriously funky version.

Enjoy!

Silver

The air is heavy right now. Heavy with humidity that reminds me of August, and heavy with the trilling of cicadas. About two weeks ago a brood of periodical cicadas began crawling out of the earth after a thirteen-year infancy underground to shed their skins, take to the trees, and find mates.

It is noisy. There are some parts of town where you barely notice the sound, but around our house it is cacophonous—like a million tiny beads spilling onto the floor, endless waves of spilling all day long. Above that sound is a higher-pitched whirring, a silvery trill between “e” and “f” that hangs in the air like a humid haze. The effect is surreal, unearthly—until I remind myself that it is exactly earthly. I am entranced.

I understand why people get annoyed. The cicadas are intrusive. The sound doesn’t stop, and can exceed 90 decibels if you are standing under a tree full of them. They fly into me once in a while. They land on my arm or my neck, prompting a little zing of adrenaline before I remember I’m not afraid of them. (They don’t bite or sting, but they are rather large, and if insects creep you out, this is not a particularly happy place to be right now.) Our lawn is littered with empty bronze skins. Remnants cling to flowers, branches, and leaves, and congregate around the roots of trees. Everywhere you look or step it seems there is a cicada flying or crawling or lying dead, its short life span already complete.

These times when the natural world interferes with normal life—I truly enjoy them. I like being forced to see or hear or move differently. Are you paying attention? Look! Do you see? Can you hear? Two weeks saturated with this electric sound is like two weeks edged with silver. How can you not pay attention? This is wonder, and yes, it has an edge to it. It is decidedly not greeting-card wonder; it is the kind of wonder that takes hold of you even while you feel the urge to turn away. But it is wonder-ful, because for a few weeks this summer, the air itself is silver.

Silver is an ornament, a glaze, a lining for something the artist or craftsman wants to highlight. Earrings direct the eyes to a face, a bracelet draws attention to the hand or arm. Tinsel on a Christmas tree, a silver place setting, tremolo violins in a Bruckner symphony. Silver is precious, but the things we adorn with silver, they are more so.

Do you see? Do you hear? These days you are walking through are lined with silver.

Notes from a Children's Concert

Oh, what a busy week! We had a full schedule of school and violin lessons and everything else, but on top of that my husband and I played three children’s concerts on Wednesday with the Quincy Symphony Orchestra (or "Quinceny Symphony," as Youngest likes to call it.) I enjoy these more every year. Maybe it’s seeing my own children in the audience, maybe it’s the energy in the auditorium, maybe it’s that I’m getting old enough that I don’t feel like I have to say that certain music is cheesy and I can just enjoy it for what it is, but I think these concerts are fun.

Some notes from those performances:

• When it’s the tuba player’s turn to hold up his instrument during the “meet the instruments” part of the program, it will always create a stir
• A harp really does sound like magic.
• The lowest note a bass clarinet can play? Just plain funny.
• Low notes in general are hilarious.
• The louder and more exciting the ending is, the louder everyone will clap, no matter what else happens.
• The best sound to hear from onstage is the collective gasp of recognition when the orchestra begins to play something familiar. Hearing the kids saying the actual title is a bonus.
• Re: above—excitement trumps perfect concert etiquette every time.
• (Every single time.)
• The music from Star Wars still rocks.
• The more brass and percussion you have for your hero theme, the better.

Carnival of the Animals

The Carnival of the Animals, music by Camille Saint-Saëns, new verses by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Mary GrandPré, Alfred A. Knopf, 2010

You probably know by now how much I love picture books like this. Combine whimsical poetry, illustration, and classical music, add one or more children and a cozy spot for curling up to look and listen, and you’ve got a real treasure. This kind of learning—environmental, multisensory, relaxed, purely enjoyable, simple—is a winner all the way around.

A big thank you to my friend, Christy, for loaning me her family’s copy of this book—I’ve wanted to get my hands on it for months. Jack Prelutsky’s poems are familiar, playful descriptions of each animal featured in Saint-Saën’s sparkling music, and Mary GrandPré’s colorful illustrations create a perfect backdrop for both. You really can’t lose.

Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts

Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts

Can I just say once more that there is so much wonderful stuff out there?  I hate to admit it, but I didn’t know about this DVD set until last week.  I haven’t gotten my hands on it yet, but I intend to, somehow.  It sounds like a treasure.

Bernstein started conducting Young People’s concerts almost immediately after becoming Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 1958, and continued directing them even after he stepped down in 1969.  They were televised programs, broadcast on Saturday mornings, Sunday afternoons, and even during prime time for three years.  He gave 53 concerts in all, until 1972.  Twenty five of those concerts are on this 9-DVD set, with titles like, “What is Orchestration?”, “Musical Atoms:  A Study in Intervals”, “The Latin American Spirit”, “What is American Music?”, and “Berlioz Takes a Trip”.  It sounds like the recording quality varies, but the music, the topics, and the way Bernstein presents them to his audience all have rave reviews.  Words like “passion,” “brilliant,” “witty,” “enthusiastic,” and “genius” keep popping up in the Amazon reviews, along with the fact that this series can be enjoyed by children and adults alike and that it is an excellent, un-condescending introduction to symphonic music

Something new to add to your list of things to add to your must read/watch/listen to list!  Life is too short.

Tools for Introducing Classical Music

I am a great fan of learning by exposure. There are definitely subjects for which you need a lesson plan and/or a teacher who knows their subject well, but there are also plenty of subjects for which the “Hey-look-at-this!” method works beautifully. Music appreciation is one of those subjects. I am continually surprised by how much material exists out there that helps introduce classical music to children. My biggest frustration is that I can’t just go out and buy all of it. (Libraries are such a blessing.)

Take a look at these CDs and books with CD that introduce kids to classical music (this is just a taste):


Bernstein Favorites: Children’s Classics (CD)
Recordings of Peter and the Wolf, Carnival of the Animals and Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra performed by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.







Classical Zoo (CD) 
Itzhak Perlman narrates poems by Bruce Adolphe, accompanied by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.







The Young Lutheran’s Guide to the Orchestra (audio CD) Garrison Keillor with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
A young man tries to decide which instrument is best suited to his personality.







Can You Hear It? by William Lach, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2006
Art and music appreciation rolled into one book with CD. Each track of music is paired with a corresponding piece of artwork from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as questions that are designed to point out musical details and images. Copland is paired with Remington, Vivaldi with Brueghel the Younger, Rossini with Currier and Ives. Includes an introduction to musical instruments and notes on both the art and music.


Carnival of the Animals: Classical Music for Kids by Camille Saint-Saens and Barrie C. Turner, illustrated by Sue Williams








The Composer is Dead by Lemony Snicket, music composed by Nathaniel Stookey, illustrations by Carson Ellis, Harper Collins Publishers, 2009
This is a picture book with companion CD featuring Lemony Snicket and the San Francisco Symphony. The music and story are clever and imaginative, and introduce each instrument in the orchestra in much the same way as Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals and Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, giving listeners a chance to hear each instrument and learn something of its role in the orchestra.



Sergei Prokoviev’s Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokoviev, adapted by Janet Schulman, illustrated by Peter Malone, Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2004







The Remarkable Farkle McBride by John Lithgow, illustrated by C. F. Payne, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2000
A musically gifted boy grows disillusioned with each instrument he masters, until he finally finds fulfillment as a conductor.






Tubby the Tuba by Paul Tripp, illustrated by Henry Cole, Dutton Children’s Books, 2006
Tubby the Tuba is sad because he never gets to play the melody, until he meets a bullfrog who inspires him. This is a remake of a story for narrator and orchestra that was written in 1946. Definite vintage feel.