Sunday, May 04, 2008

Cinderella at the Symphony

I've mentioned before how Dave's parents take the cousins in Utah to the Utah Symphony's Lollipops family concerts, and that they extended the same offer to us, by sending us tickets to a couple of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's family concerts. I don't think I mentioned how grateful I am that we've been able to take the kids to the symphony - that my kids even know the word 'symphony'.
I've had many opportunities in my life to go to the theater, and I've been to the opera twice. Before two years ago though, I had never been to the symphony. And more than all of the culture that I am going to sneak into my children's lives, I want them to have an appreciation for good, wholesome, uplifting music the most. That's why I am so grateful that the BSO has family concerts, and that we can take the kids to them.
Last month the family concert was a Cinderella production. Bob Brown's life size puppets came and acted out the story, while the BSO played selections from Sergei Prokofiev's Cinderella. The kids enjoyed the puppets while the music snuck subtly into their little brains. I had never really heard any version of Cinderella other than Disney and Rodgers and Hammerstein (come on, you know you love that one too), so I was surprised that it had sort of a Russian style. Wait... what? culture, education, opening my mind? All from listening to music? Mmhhhhh.... interesting.... We also heard an excerpt from "Mazurka" from Copelia (a ballet by Leo Delibes), which we all really enjoyed, and an excerpt from "Grand Waltz Brilliante" from Les Sylphides (a ballet by Frederic Chopin). After the show, we took some pictures by these tulips across the street and then went out to lunch at Chili's. Yum!

Another way I sneak culture into my children's lives is by turning the classical radio station on and helping the kids to make up stories to the music. Evie now asks for classical music, so it must be working at least a little bit.

Owen on the other hand, prefers "robot music" (Daft Punk). I guess we have a little work to do there.

Oh, and culture also magically makes siblings best friends, too.
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1 comment:

Stace said...

Your kids are so stinkin' cute! I love the sibling hugs shot. That sounds like a really neat concert. I love puppet shows so much so to have a symphony playing along, wow! What a cool experience.