NewsBlog Editor’s Note: This post is the first of a series written by CMIE Guided Intern Hermann Hudde, as part of the documentation for Hudde’s CMIE Guided Internship. See other posts in this series here.

On January 29 I participated in a performance outreach educational concert as a part of my internship in music in education at the BSO Music Education Office, and the Youth Concert Series for Public Schools in Boston that the BSO organizes every year. This was for me was a very pleasant opportunity and experience because it allowed me to share music with a young audience as well as to introduce them to the guitar, which is not an instrument that belongs to the traditional orchestra. In order to better engage the children age 7 – 10, I asked the BSO M. Ed. office to post a world map, because my idea was to make with the children a world trip from Latin America to Europe using the guitar and its music as a link. Exposing the children to two kinds of music that are not commonly heard in Symphony Hall, in allows them to appreciate in diverse cultures, and to enhance their perspectives about music and styles.

I began the morning session by telling the children that I was very happy performing for them and that I knew that they had a lot of questions and curiosity about the guitar and the music. I started by playing the first movement of Mexican composer Manuel Ponce, Sonata Romantica’s which is a piece of music in Romantic style. As I finished this performance, I opened the dialogue with them and they asked all sort of questions that lead into an interesting discussion about the different types of guitars and styles; for example: Why do you use the fingers and not a pick? , Where is your amplifier? Are there differences between your guitar and the electric guitar?. I continued my performance with a piece by the Paraguayan composer Agustin Barrios Mangore.

In order to introduce the first Spanish piece by Manuel de Falla “Le Tombeau”, I told the children that this opus was written and dedicated to a friend of his, whose name was Claude Debussy, and that this work was very mysterious. The Tombeau is an impressionists’ style opus that employs a lot of effects that express a special color in the music as well as being visually very exciting for the audience. I told them that for me it was like a ghost’s piece of music, and then introduced them to the melody which has a very shadowy feeling. Children as well the teachers enjoyed this piece very much because I used these images in my opening presentation and invited the audience to use their creativity.

To conclude the outreach performance, I played the first movement Joaquin Rodrigo’s Sonata Giocosa. However I began the music I answered some of their questions and about the use of folklore and dance elements in music in general and in this composition especially. The children were very curious about everything and by the end of the outreach performance they were ready to go Symphony Hall to hear the orchestra playing the program “What do you hear?.”

For the second session the group was bigger than the first one, and I followed the same program, but left more time to have more interaction with the children. This group’s questions were more about the composers, the instrument and me as a musician; for example: It is difficult to play guitar?, Do you like Beethoven?, Which piece of music did you play at first?. To documentate the outreach event the BSO staff took pictures of each session.

It was a great experience for me that remind me of the feeling I had for music when I was that age – the sense of discovering a new world.

| This entry was posted on Sunday, February 10th, 2008 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Beyond NEC & The MIE Ecosystem, Community Collaborations, Guided Internships, International Perspectives on Music-In-Education, Reports from Documentation Specialists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.