“Sand Storm” from Death Valley Suite Ferde Grofé

“Waltz of the Snowflakes” from The Nutcracker Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

“Sunrise” from Also sprach Zarathustra Richard Strauss

“Morning Mood” from Peer Gynt Edvard Grieg

“Thunderstorm” from Symphony No. 6 “Pastoral” Ludwig van Beethoven

“Drought” from The Plow that Broke the Plains Virgil Thomson

A Night on Bald Mountain Modest Mussorgsky

“Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz Harold Arlen

Overture to William Tell Gioachino Rossini

What is a Composer? A composer is a person who writes music. He or she can write music for groups as large as a symphony orchestra, or as small as a single instrument. Many times in orchestral works the composer tells a story. All of the different instruments of the orchestra are the actors in the story. A composer can write music based on many different things, such as a dream, a place, a person, or a poem. Sometimes composers even create music by mixing many different pieces. A composer has the ability to hear a tune in his head and write it down as notes for instruments.

Meet the Music Director 2

Meet the Meteorologist 3

Program Notes: Our Composers and their Music 4-5, 7-12, 15

Music: Waltz of the Snowflakes 6

Music: Over the Rainbow 13

Lessons & Activities

The William Tell Overture 16

Toasty Wind 18

Morning Mood 18

Guide to the Orchestra 19

Additional Activities/Resources and Core Standards 20

Student Program Template 21

Meet the Orchestra 23

Concert Behavior 23

Acknowledgements 24

This ear symbol will give students something to listen for in select pieces.

Table of Contents

Watch for the umbrella to give you interesting facts or vocabulary words.

The following program notes were written for the students.

The conductor of an orchestra is the leader. Conductors must know a great deal about music, the great composers, and their works. They must also have the skills and personality to direct many players at once and to help the players work together as a team. Conductors understand how each instrument works and the special qualities of each instrument. Most importantly, they learn each piece of music well enough to guide all the players in exciting performances!

Maestro Demirjian moved to Knoxville from Kansas City where he was the Associate Conductor of the Kansas City Symphony. He was born into a musical family in Lexington, Massachusetts, where he learned to play the cello and sing. Aram was seven years old when his mother first taught him how to conduct a 4/4 pattern, and he

always enjoyed being the line-leader in elementary school. His desire to be a conductor began as he played cello in his high school orchestra. The first orchestra he ever conducted was the Lexington High School Orchestra, on his 18th birthday, one week before he graduated from high school. He attended Harvard University, where he first studied government, but switched to music after two seasons con-ducting the Harvard Bach Society Orchestra. He then attended the New England Conservatory in Boston. Aram loves sports especially football, baseball and basketball! His favorite teams are the New England Patriots, Boston Red Sox and Boston Celtics.

Aram Demirjian

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Meet the Music Director

O en conductors hold a baton, a s ck that they use to mark the beats of the music for the orchestra to follow.

Do you see the baton that Maestro Aram Demirjian is using? Conductors are addressed by the tle Maestro, for men, or Maestra, for women. This Italian word means “teacher.”

A meteorologist is a scientist who studies the atmosphere, climate change, weather patterns and is especially good at forecasting the weather. In school, meteorologists study physics, chemistry, algebra, calculus and computer science. You may know a meteorologist from television or radio, but they can also have jobs in air transportation, global warming, pollution control, ozone depletion, droughts, forestry, agriculture and more. Meteorologists use satellites, weather balloons, radars, sensors and weather stations to study wind, temperature, humidity and air pressure. Their weather predictions are important to many different jobs including agriculture, shipping, forestry, fishing and transportation. They also help you know how to dress for school each day!

“It all started in elementary school, when I was selected to be the weather kid for a local television station in Bismarck, North Dakota. From the moment I walked on set, I knew I wanted to have this kind of job when I was older.

I was born and raised in Bismarck, ND. I graduated from Minnesota State University Moorhead in three years with a B.S. in Mass Communications. While in college, I started working at WDAY-TV in Fargo, ND, and continued to work there throughout my on-air career. In Fargo, we really do say "you betcha and ufduh", I may pop these words out every now and then on the air.

Prior to Knoxville, I was the morning weather anchor at WDAY-TV, where I covered everything from white-out blizzards and 40 below wind chill days to blistering hot 100 degree days leading to thunderstorms with golf ball sized hail at night. I'm looking forward to covering the complex weather of East Tennessee.

When I'm not at work, I enjoy long distance running, taking my dog Titus, a Corgi, for walks, spending time with family and friends, and trying new foods.”

Rebecca Sweet

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Meet the Meteorologist

“Sand Storm” from Death Valley Suite

Ferde Grofé (1892-1972)

Ferde Grofé was an American composer, arranger, conductor and pianist. His full name is Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé, but he went by Ferde. Grofé’s parents immigrated to the United States from Germany. He was born in New York City, but his family soon moved to Los Angeles. His father was a violinist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and his

mother was a cellist. She gave Ferde his first music lessons in piano and viola. Ferde moved away from home when he was about fourteen. He tried out a number of jobs including bookbinder, truck driver, usher, newsboy, and elevator operator. By the age of 15, Grofé was playing professionally as a pianist and violinist at dances and as an alto horn player in a brass band. He played in both the Los Angeles Symphony

Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, for movies, and in theatres throughout the West. He played with the all-electric New World Ensemble which was featured at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, but he is most famous for his short orchestral suites: Grand Canyon, Mississippi, Hudson River, Niagara Falls, Hawaii, Hollywood and San Francisco Suites which all describe places in America. He was also the chief musical arranger for Radio City Music Hall in New York.

Death Valley Suite is a short symphonic work about the westward travels of pioneers through the harsh lands of Death Valley in California. It was written as a part of a pageant celebrating the 100th anniversary of a group of pioneers called the 49ers who traveled through Death

Valley in search of gold and other riches. It was first performed on December 3, 1949, in the Desolation Canyon area of Death Valley

National Park. The music was used in the background as a procession of covered wagons entered the canyon.

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Listen for the sound of swirling winds created by a wind machine which is a member of the percussion family of instruments. A percussionist produces the sound of wind by rotating a barrel inside a close-fitting canvas cover. He can change the pitch by rotating the barrel faster or slower. If the barrel rotates faster the pitch goes higher, if is rotates slower, the pitch becomes lower. Grofé also creates the sound of swirling winds through the use of trills in the strings. Listen for the effect of gusting winds which Grofe creates by sudden changes in dynamics. As the music moves from loud to soft, the listener experiences a musical wind gust. Using all of these sounds, Grofé is able to create music that sounds like swirling wind and sand across the desert.

Trill— produced when a performer moves rapidly between two neighboring notes

Dynamics—indicate to musicians how loud or soft to play the music. You use dynamics when you speak every day—you may whisper in the library, but call loudly to your friends on the play-ground.

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Tchaikovsky grew up in Russia in a very large family. His father was a mining engineer and he had a sister and twin brothers. His brother, Modest, became a writer and wrote a biography about Pyotr’s life. Tchaikovsky was a very smart child and by the age of six he could read in Russian, French and German. The music of

Beethoven had a great effect on Tchaikovsky and, like Beethoven, he learned to play the piano. Tchaikovsky also studied the flute and the organ. He loved to travel and worked as a music critic for two Moscow newspapers. He is known for writing

music with a Russian sound and is most famous for his music for ballet: The Nutcracker, Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty.

“Waltz of the Snowflakes” is the last piece in the first act of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. As it is played Clara and her prince enter a snowy pine forest. All waltzes are written with three beats in each measure with the emphasis on the first beat. Try patting your knees for 1 and then tapping your head for 2 and 3...Pat, tap, tap; Pat, tap, tap; 1, 2, 3; 1, 2, 3. Tchai-kovsky creates the sound of snowflakes using the woodwind family. The flutes begin the piece with quick sounds like snow-flakes appearing in the sky. As the music continues, the flutes and other woodwinds play a pat-tern of descending notes like falling snow.

I grew up in a quiet spot and was saturated from earliest childhood with the wonderful beauty of Russian popular song. I therefore passionately devoted to every expression of the Russian spirit. In short, I am a Russian through and through!” —Pytor Tchaikovsky

“Waltz of the Snowflakes” from The Nutcracker

Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

MUSIC: WALTZ OF THE SNOWFLAKES

Please have your students learn the children’s choir portion of Waltz of the Snowflakes. Words have been added to help learn the part which is usually sung on “Ah.” They will have an opportunity to sing along with this piece at the concert.

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“Sunrise” from Also sprach Zarathustra

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Richard Strauss was born in Munich, Germany. He was the oldest of two children in his family. His father was the principal horn player in the Munich Court Orchestra. Strauss took piano lessons at the age of four, wrote his first composition at the

age of six, took up the violin at the age of eight and by age eighteen had composed 140 works. He wrote all kinds of music but is best known for his operas and tone poems. He married a fa-mous soprano who was very outspoken, but they had a happy marriage and she was an inspiration to him. Strauss preferred the soprano voice and his operas all contain important soprano roles. Strauss also became a famous conductor.

A Contrabassoon is larger and longer than a bassoon and sounds lower in pitch

A tone poem, also called a symphonic poem is a piece of orchestral music which expresses or “paints a picture in the listener’s mind” of a poem, short story, painting or landscape.

Soprano— a type of female singing voice that the highest of all voice types.

This piece is well known from the movie: 2001 A Space Odyssey. You may have heard it on television shows, movies or in commercials.

The piece begins with a low, sustained note in the double basses and contrabassoon. A three note theme to announce the rising sun is played over the low note by the trumpets. The three notes are C—G—C. Listen for the timpani to

interject two note pattern that continues until the sun is fully risen in the sky.

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“Morning Mood” from Peer Gynt

Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)

Edvard Grieg was born in Norway to a family that had many musical members. His mother was a pianist and was Grieg’s first music teacher. As a teenager he studied at a music conservatory in Germany and then went on to a career as a pianist

and composer. Every summer he returned to his home country to compose and was a supporter of Norwegian music, art and theatre. Peer Gynt was originally a play written by the famous Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen asked Grieg if he would compose the music for Peer Gynt. You will recognize “Morning Mood” and “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from this play. You have probably heard them in television shows, movies or

commercials.

This is the story of Peer Gynt and the Troll King

as told by Susan Ramsay: Peer was a young and handsome man from Norway. He and his mother Ase lived in a small house and were very poor. Peer had a wild imagination—he made up stories about fantastic adventures that never happened. He often pretended to be rich, and sometimes fibbed so well that people believed him. One day Peer was walking far from his home near two beautiful mountains. He tripped, hit his head on a rock, and fainted. When he woke up a beautiful girl was standing over him. She said that she was a princess, and her father was the king of the mountain beside them. Peer introduced himself as a prince and said his father was the king of the other mountain. The princess offered to

take Peer to her father. They walked to the mountain. The girl struck the mountain with her hand and it opened to form a cave. As they walked through the cave, Peer asked about the strange looking people he saw sleeping by the walls. She explained that they were trolls, who lived in the mountain and were her father’s subjects. They entered a large room in the center of the mountain, where her father waited on his throne. On one side he had a huge pile of gold and silver, and on the other a pile of diamonds and precious stones. Peer decided he’d like to marry the princess. He made a good impression on the king, so when he asked for her hand, the king said he would agree if Peer would meet three conditions. First, Peer must dress like the trolls, including wearing a tail. Peer didn’t like the idea, but looked at the beautiful girl, the gold and silver, and he agreed. The king said that Peer must also eat what the trolls eat. Peer found that the trolls ate rocks and dirt, but he figured he could manage somehow, so he agreed. The king said that the trolls were almost completely blind, and that if Peer married his daughter, they would put something in his eyes to make him blind. Peer looked again at the princess and the wealth of the king, but decided it wasn’t worth it. He said “NO” and began to leave. The king was furious! He ordered the trolls to grab Peer and beat him, but Peer took off running down the cave to escape. He found the trolls in the cave still sleeping, so he walked on tip-toe at first, stepping over the trolls. He heard the King coming so he began to walk faster. Eventually he was running for his life. He came to the end of the cave, but the opening had closed. He struck the mountain like the Princess had done, but nothing happened. The trolls caught up and began to bite and scratch him. Desperately, he beat on the mountain again, and tried to push the trolls away. He hit the wall a third time. He heard a rumbling deep within the mountain, and the walls began to shake. The ceiling caved in and everything went dark. When Peer opened his eyes he was lying on the ground, on the very spot where he met the Princess. His head was hurting. Did he get out of the cave by magic, or did he dream the whole thing?

Listen for the opening melody played by the flute. The oboe, strings, horns and full orchestra all take turns playing this theme.

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Beethoven is one of the most famous composers who ever lived. He only attended school through the end of elementary school. At the time when he lived only a few

children went on to Gymnasium (high school). He was a very shy young person and learned to play the violin, the viola and the piano. Later in his life he lost his hearing but still kept composing. He was able to imagine the whole orchestra playing a symphony in his head, before

writing it down on paper. Beethoven would also press piano keys down using something held in his mouth, in order to feel the vibrations of each note. Unlike many other composers Beethoven was famous all over Europe during his lifetime. When he died 20,000 people came to his funeral, and long after Beethoven lived composers modeled themselves after him. Beethoven wrote a total of nine

symphonies.

“Thunderstorm” from Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral”

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony is a type of program music, meaning it tells a story.

Staccato—a musical technique where each note or sound is separated from the others

Tremolo—a wavering effect on a musical tone

Pastorale– A piece written about nature or the countryside that deals with a simple or natural setting

Thunder is the sound wave that occurs when air expands rapidly due to the extreme heat of a lightning flash.

You will hear a part of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, which has a title, Pastorale. In this symphony Beethoven writes about life in the country. He describes the people, the landscape, and a storm. Beethoven wrote down on paper

exactly what he was trying to represent with this music—Joyful feelings on being in the countryside. The “thunderstorm”

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Virgil Thompson was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Remember, Maestro Demirjian just moved to Knoxville from Kansas City! Thompson studied piano and organ as a young man. Also like Maestro Demirjian, he attended Harvard University. He became a composer and music critic and was the

chief music critic for the New York Herald Tribune. He was good friends with the famous author Gertrude Stein and wrote music to go along with several of her writings. He also wrote eight books himself. He won the Pulitzer Prize, the gold medal for music from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letter, the National Book Circle Award, and a Kennedy Center Honor, among other awards.

The Dust Bowl was the name given to the Great Plains region, the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and neighboring sections of Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico, that were devastated by drought in the 1930s. This area has little rainfall, light soil and high winds. When a severe drought struck from 1934 to 1937 the soil did not have strong grass roots to hold it in place so the winds easily picked up the loose soil and it became thick dust clouds. Crops and cattle were killed and many people lost their farms and homes and were forced to move to new cities. In 1936, the U.S. Department of Agriculture commissioned a film about America’s Farmland during the Dust Bowl. Virgil Thomson composed the score that accompanied the film called The Plow that Broke the plains. The music closely follows each scene and includes the segments: “Grass,” “Cattle,” “Homesteader,” and “Drought,” among others. Virgil Thomson wrote the following text in the score before “Drought:”

A country without rivers...without streams...with little rain… Once again the rains held off and the sun baked the earth. This time no grass held moisture against the winds and sun… This time millions of acres of plowed land lay open to the sun.

“Drought” from The Plow that Broke the Plains

Virgil Thompson (1896-1989)

Listen for a canon, a repeated melody, that begins in the strings and then is copied by the bassoons overlapping the strings. The melody is very sparse so that it sounds like the desolate land left behind by the drought.

Modest Mussorgsky was born in Karevo, a village in Russia, to a wealthy land-owning family. He began piano lessons with his mother at the age of six and it became clear early on that Mussorgsky was a very good pianist. He went to military boarding school and joined the army as an officer.

Mussorgsky studied music with another Russian composer, Mily Balakirev, and left the army to become a composer. He was a part of a famous group of Russian composers known as the “Mighty Handful,” because there were five in the group. This group of composers wanted to write music based on traditional songs, stories and folk dances of the Russian people. Besides Mussorsky, the group included Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, and Rimsky-Korsakov.

A Night on Bald Mountain was finished in 1867, but it was never performed during Mussorgsky’s lifetime. Mussorgsky was not a professional musician and so another Russian composer, Rimsky-Korsakov,

re-orchestrated many of his pieces. The version of A Night on Bald Mountain that is heard today is the one rewritten by Rimsky-Korsakov.

A Night on Bald Mountain was featured in the 1940s Disney Film Fantasia.

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A Night on Bald Mountain

Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)

Orchestrator—A composer who takes a piece of music and writes parts of that music for each instrument of the orchestra to play.

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“Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz

Harold Arlen (1905-1986)

Harold Arlen was born in Buffalo, New York. His given name was Hyman Artluck, but he felt that his name was harmful to his career, so he changed it to Harold Arlen—Arlen was a combination of his parents’ last names. His father was a cantor and Harold sang in the choir at his father’s synagogue.

He was a pianist, and at the age of fifteen played the piano in local movie houses and even on an excursion boat on Lake Erie. He played with different bands in New York—the Snappy Trio and the Buffalodians, but worked mostly as a pianist and singer on the radio. He also played for theatre shows and in his own bands, and began writing his own songs. In 1934, Arlen began to write music for Hollywood films.

In 1938 he was asked to compose the music for the film The Wizard of Oz for a fee of $25,000, with only four and a half months to complete the music. One of the songs from that film was “Over the Rainbow.” Today it is one of the most recognizable songs in the history of film. It won an Academy Award for Best Song in 1939.

Learn the song “Over the Rainbow” and be ready to sing along with the KSO at the concert!

Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high There’s a land that I heard of, once in a lullaby

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue And the dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true

Someday I wish upon a star And wake up where the clouds are far behind me Where troubles melt like lemon drops away above the chimney tops That’s where you’ll find me

Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly Birds fly over the rainbow, why, then oh why can’t I?

Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly Birds fly over the rainbow, why, then oh why can’t I?

If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow Why, oh why can’t I?

In 2000, “Over the Rainbow” was recognized as the No. 1 song of the 20th century.

Cantor—a soloist who leads people in singing, most often in some type of religious service

MUSIC: OVER THE RAINBOW Please have your students learn Over the Rainbow. They will have an opportunity to sing along with this piece at the concert.

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Overture to William Tell

Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)

Gioachino Rossini was an Italian and the most famous popular opera composer of his time. In his day, no one wrote operas better than he. Like many musicians, Rossini learned about music from his parents. His father played the horn and the trumpet; his mother was an opera singer. Rossini learned to sing and to play the piano and horn at an early age.

Rossini wrote his first of 39 operas in 1810. His last opera, William Tell, was written when he was only 37 years old. The full opera is not performed very often because it is six hours long, but the overture is performed a lot. This work is based on the legend of a Swiss hero. After William Tell, Rossini, for reasons that are unknown, simply stopped composing operas. During the rest of his lifetime, he wrote only a few other minor works for his friends and the church. He eventually retired to Paris, where he enjoyed celebrity status and retirement. He died there at the age of 76.

You will hear the overture to Rossini’s opera, William Tell. According to legend, William Tell was an expert with a bow and arrow who lived in the mountains of Switzerland. At the time, Switzerland was under the control of Austria and a nasty ruler named Gessler. Gessler thought that he was so important that the citizens should salute him even when he wasn’t there. So, he put his hat on a pole in the center of town and commanded the citizens to bow down to it whenever they passed it. William Tell arrived in town one day with his son and refused to salute the hat. Gessler was very upset, but instead of killing William Tell right there he challenged him to shoot an apple off his son’s head with one shot. If he succeeded, William Tell could remain free. Tell did shoot he apple off his son’s head with a single arrow. But Gessler noticed that before he took a shot Tell had taken two arrows out of his quiver and asked why. William Tell answered, “If I had missed, the second arrow would have been headed your way.” Eventually, William Tell did kill Gessler, an act that started a Swiss uprising that ultimately forced the Austrian invaders from Switzerland.

You may have heard this piece at a patriotic concert celebrating July 4th or Labor Day.

The overture from William Tell was also used as theme music for The Lone Ranger.

Listen for the English Horn (a member of the oboe family) at the

beginning, calls in the trumpets and French Horns and the famous galloping music.

LESSONS &ACTIVITIES: THE WILLIAM TELL OVERTURE

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MATERIALS: Cloudy with a Chance of Music CD; Teacher’s Guide

Teacher: This year the theme of the Very Young People’s Concert this year is Cloudy with a Chance of Music. The concert will have music all about different types of weather. The last piece on the concert though, is a famous piece called The Overture to William Tell. Let’s see if you recognize it...

Play just the introduction and stop the CD, and let the students tell if they know this music

Teacher: The William Tell Overture is by a composer named Rossini. Today you will get to help perform this music, not with instruments, but with your hands. As we listen to this music, we will perform a different rhythm pattern for each different melody we hear. There are four, and we will call the A, B, C and D.

Teacher: But guess what...they don’t go in A-B-C-D order! We will discover what order they are in when we listen to the music. Let’s practice the rhythms first.

Lead students in practicing the rhythms:

A Pat legs (alternating hands)

(horse) (horse) (po-ny) (horse)

B Stamp Feet }

(horse) (horse) (horse) (rest)

C Clap hands }

(po-ny) (po-ny) (horse) (rest)

D Snap fingers

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Note: The order of the sections in the music is A B A C D C B A Coda (ending section). There is also a short bridge section every

time the music moves from B back to the familiar A section. These letters are simply labels for the different tunes heard in this

music. You change the motion you are doing according to what tune you hear, and you already know the order they are in. You

may want to have the students just sit quietly and listen on the coda or have them keep the beat in some way that is different

from the motions on the cards, maybe a two-finger clap or tapping their shoulders. The coda is quite long, however. Rossini

was one of those composers who had trouble saying goodbye!

Now ask the students if they can tell you the order the sections were in. They will surprise you! You may wish to ask them

which section was only heard once (D).

If you have extra time, the students may wish to perform the activity again. Or you may wish to discuss what they might expect

at the concert and proper concert behavior.

Note: You may wish to use words to speak the rhythms along with the motions. This will help both you and the students. You

might ask for suggestions from the students for one and two-syllable animal names and chant the rhythms with those (i.e.

‘horse’ for one sound and ‘pony’ for two sounds or ‘horse’ and ‘running’).

Teacher: Now we’re going to listen to the whole piece, and if you watch carefully, you’ll know exactly which rhythm to perform. Here we go!

Start the music back at the beginning. Get ready during the introduction, but do not begin patting your legs until the main

theme starts. Go through the entire piece, changing motions every time the music changes. The students will follow you!

LESSONS &ACTIVITIES: THE WILLIAM TELL OVERTURE CONT...

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Overview: We feel the wind everyday. The air is almost always in motion. One day it may be from the north and the next day from the south. There are many sources for wind: mechanical sources such as fans, but where does wind come from on the earth? Using a toast-er, students will observe that wind is created by the heat that rises.

Materials: Pinwheel, Toaster (Note: Pinwheels today are almost all of plastic construction. Be cautious with the heat from the toaster as it may cause the blades of the pinwheel to soften and deform. Check Kmart or WalMart for pinwheels made of mylar.)

Procedure: 1. Turn the toaster on to allow the unit to heat. 2. Ask the students: How is wind created on earth? 3. Ask the students: if Do you think this toaster can create wind? 4. Hold the face of the pinwheel 10-15 inches above the top of the toaster to allow the pinwheel to spin. 5. Turn the toaster off.

Discussion: Most younger students will say clouds or trees produce wind and that toasters cannot produce wind. They will quickly see that toasters do produce wind. Explain that wind is just air molecules (particles) in motion. The toaster warms the air inside, making the air rise and creating wind. The source for the earth’s heat is the sun. The sun heats the ground and as warm air rises from the ground cooler air comes in to replace the rising air—and we feel wind.

LESSONS &ACTIVITIES: TOASTY WIND SOURCE: NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: HTTP://WWW.SRH.NOAA.GOV/JETSTREAM/GLOBAL/II_TOAST.HTML

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Learn to sing Morning Mood on solfege syllables. Add Curwen Hand Signs to help your students if they know them.

LESSONS &ACTIVITIES: MORNING MOOD SUGGESTED BY: TRACY WARD, SEQUOYAH ELEMENTARY

Additional Activities/Resources for Teachers:

1. Discuss the theme for the program and how each piece creates musical pictures of specific types of weather. Play the concert CD for students and ask them to visualize the weather being represented. Ask the stu-dents to draw what they heard in the music for each of the pieces on the program.

2. Create a rainstorm using body percussion. Listen to Beethoven’s “Thunderstorm.” Discuss the cycle of a rainstorm: wind, rain drops, heavy rain, thunder, heavy rain, rain drops, wind. Discuss different ways to cre-ate the sound of a rainstorm using body percussion: rubbing hands to-gether to create wind; snapping fingers to create rain drops; patting hands on thighs to create heavy rain; stomping feet to create thunder. Create an indoor rainstorm by moving through each of these motions as a class.

3. Create tornado in a Jar. (Materials: water, liquid dishwashing soap, food coloring, clear peanut butter jar and lid, salt) Pour one teaspoon of salt into the peanut butter jar. Fill the peanut butter jar with water, about 3/4 capacity. Add one drop of dishwashing liquid. Only a small amount of soap is needed. (Too much soap will prevent your students from seeing the tornado). If desired, add some drops of food coloring. Secure the lid and begin rotating the jar quickly for a few seconds, keeping the bottom almost stationary while widely spinning the top. Stop and observe.

4. Visit http://scool.larc.nasa.gov/pdf/ElementaryGLOBE_Clouds_en_HiRes.pdf for an elementary story book about different types of clouds.

5. Visit http://www.slideshare.net/LisaGardiner2/seeing-clouds-like-an-artist for a slide show of famous artists’ depictions of clouds

6. Visit http://scied.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/files/activity_files/cloudViewer2014_FINAL.pdf for a guide to viewing clouds and the sky

7. Visit http://scool.larc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/lessonplan.cgi for NASA lessons and activities on the sky, clouds and weather

8. Visit http://scied.ucar.edu/teaching-box for lesson plans on clouds, win-ter-weather, and climate-water

9. This site has an easy memory game depicting the different types of clouds: http://scied.ucar.edu/clouds-memory-game

10. This website includes an up-to-date drought map for the United States: http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

11. Visit http://www.classicsforkids.com/pastshows.asp?id=154 for a Classics for Kids show about Weather in Music including information about Rossini and an activity sheet for The William Tell Overture.

Core Standards addressed by the concert and/or the activities in this Teacher’s Guide:

Creating

MU:Cr1-1.a

MU:Cr2-1.a

MU:Cr2-1.b

MU:Cr3-1.a

MU:Cr1-PreK.a

MU:Cr2-PreK.a

MU:Cr3-PreK.a

MU:Cr1-K.a

MU:Cr1-K.b

MU:Cr2-K.a

MU:Cr2-K.b

MU:Cr3-K.a

MU:Re7-PreK.a

MU:Re7-PreK.b

MU:Re7-PreK.c

MU:Re8-PreK.a

MU:Re9-PreK.a

MU:Re7-K.a

MU:Re7-K.b

MU:Re7-K.c

MU:Re8-K.a

MU:Re9-K.a

MU:Re9-K.b

MU:Re7-1.a

MU:Re7-1.b

MU:Re8-1.a

MU:Re9-1.a

MU:Re9-1.b

MU:Re9-1.c

Responding

MU:Cn10-PreK.a

MU:Cn10-PreK.b

MU:Cn11-PreK.a

MU:Cn11-PreK.b

Connecting

Performing

MU:Pr4-PreK.a

MU:Pr4-PreK.b

MU:Pr4-PreK.c

MU:Pr5-PreK.a

MU:Pr5-PreK.b

MU:Pr6-PreK.a

MU:Pr4-K.a

MU:Cr4-K.b

MU:Cr4-K.c

MU:Pr5-K.a

MU:Pr5-K.b

MU:Pr5-K.c

MU:Pr6-K.a

MU:Pr6-K.b

MU:Pr6-K.c

MU:Pr4-1.a

MU:Pr4-1.b

MU:Pr4-1.c

MU:Pr5-1.a

MU:Pr5-1.b

MU:Pr5-1.c

MU:Pr6-1.a

MU:Pr6-1.b

MU:Pr6-1.c

MU:Cn10-K.a

MU:Cn10-K.b

MU:Cn10-K.c

MU:Cn11-K.a

MU:Cn11-K.b

MU:Cn11-K.c

MU:Cn10-1.a

MU:Cn10-1.b

MU:Cn10-1.c

MU:Cn11-1.a

MU:Cn11-1.b

MU:Cn11-1.c

20

Suggested Books:

Barrett, Judi and Ronald. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Keats, Ezra Jack. The Snowy Day McCloskey, Robert. A Time of Wonder Rabe, Tish. O Say Can You Say What’s the Weather Today: All About Weather Venezia, Mike. Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Composers. Zolotow, Charlotte. The Storm Book

MU:Cr2-2.a

MU:Cr2-2.a

MU:Cr2-2.b

MU:Cr3-2.a

MU:Re7-2.a

MU:Re7-2.b

MU:Re7-2.c

MU:Re8-2.a

MU:Re8-2.b

MU:Re9-2.a

MU:Re9-2.b

MU:Re9-2.c

MU:Pr4-2.a

MU:Pr4-2.b

MU:Pr4-2.c

MU:Pr5-2.a

MU:Pr5-2.b

MU:Pr5-2.c

MU:Pr6-2.a

MU:Pr6-2.b

MU:Pr6-2.c

MU:Cn10-2.a

MU:Cn10-2.b

MU:Cn10-2.c

MU:Cn11-2.a

MU:Cn11-2.b

MU:Cn11-2.c

For their generous support of our Very Young People’s Concerts,

the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra gratefully acknowledges:

Wednesday, January 25, 2017 Tennessee Theatre

Thursday, January 26, 2017 Clayton Center for the Arts

Maryville, TN

Aram Demirjian, Music Director

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS IN EDUCATION:

Sarah Cummings, Knox County Schools Elementary Professional Development Tracy Ward, Sequoyah Elementary,

Teacher’s Guide KSO Education Advisory Council

The Boyd Family

21

“Sand Storm” from Death Valley Suite Ferde Grofé “Waltz of the Snowflakes” fromThe Nutcracker Pytor Tchaikovsky “Sunrise” from Also sprach Zarathustra Richard Strauss “Morning Mood” from Peer Gynt Edvard Grieg

“Thunderstorm” from Symphony No. 6 Ludwig van Beethoven

“Drought” from The Plow the Broke the Plains Virgil Thomson A Night on Bald Mountain Modest Mussorgsky

“Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz Harold Arlen

Overture to William Tell Gioachino Rossini 22

Concert

Behavior The musicians who are

performing for you would like to

have your help in making this a

wonderful concert. It is

important to remember that the

orchestra is in the same room

with you, not in a movie or on

TV. If you talk or make other

noises, they can hear you. If

you get up and leave in the

middle of the performance, they

can see you. These things could

make the musicians take their

minds off their music and they

may not be able to perform at

their best. These things can

also be distracting to those

around you.

Phillip Chase Hawkins plays Principal Trumpet with the KSO. He also regularly teaches and plays with ensembles in Kentucky, but he has performed in concert halls all over the world. Chase plays many styles of music besides classical: bluegrass, jazz, salsa, funk, soul and other popular music. Chase started playing the trumpet at age 10, but before working on music pieces, he spent over a month making sounds on the mouthpiece because it was weird and made funny sounds, like a horse. These sounds are actually his favorite thing about the trumpet along with using mutes (like a plunger placed in the end of the trumpet bell) and other objects to change the sound.

Today’s symphony orchestra varies in size from city to city, but usually has about 100 players. Orchestras are different from bands because they include string instruments. The string section is the largest section of players in the orchestra, with about 60 people. The woodwind section is made up of approximately twelve or more players, and the brass section typically has ten players. Finally, the percussion section ranges in numbers, depending on the amount of percussion parts used in a piece.

The Guide to the Orchestra sheet included in your teacher’s guide shows how you will see the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra seated when you come to the Very Young People’s Concert. The players are seated in a semicircle facing the conductor, with the strings right in front. The woodwinds are usually behind the strings, and behind them are the brass. The percussion is normally seated at the back of the orchestra on the right and left corners of the semicircle.

Principal Cellist Andy Bryenton has played with the KSO for thirty years. He lived and studied in the northeastern U.S. before moving to Knoxville. Besides his duties with the orchestra, he gives private cello lessons in his home studio and teaches at Carson Newman University. He also plays with a local gypsy jazz ensemble. Andy writes the KSO blog and is well

known by the KSO staff for the delicious tomatoes he grows in the summer!

Jill Bartine has played second flute with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra since 2000. She studied flute performance at Northwestern University, where she studied with flute players from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Jill has taught flute at Carson-Newman

University and Maryville College, and also teaches middle and high school flute students. When not playing or teaching music, Jill is busy pursuing her other passion, yoga. She became a certified instructor in 2011, and currently teaches classes several times a week. Jill’s free time is spent with her husband Mac and twin boys, Owen and Noah.

Meet the Orchestra

23

ANDY BRYENTON, PRINCIPAL CELLO

PHILIP CHASE HAWKINS, PRINCIPAL TRUMPET

JILL BARTINE, FLUTE

Please help make this a good performance by showing how to be a good audience.

Be quiet as the lights dim and the concert begins.

Clap when the concertmaster enters at the beginning of the concert.

Clap again when the conductor enters at the beginning of the concert.

Clap to welcome any soloists during the concert.

During the performance watch the conductor. When the conductor puts his hands down and turns to face the audience the piece is completed.

At the end of a piece, clap to let the musicians know you like what you hear.

SPONSORS:

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS IN EDUCATION:

Knox County Schools

Tracy Ward, Sequoyah Elementary, Teacher’s Guide

Education Advisory Council: Andy Adzima, Inskip Elementary

Sheree Beeler, Shannondale Elementary Liz Britt, Webb School of Knoxville

Sarah Cummings, Knox County Elementary Professional Development Allison Hendrix, Northshore Elementary

Kristin Luttrell, Gibbs Elementary

Lee Ann Parker, Bearden Elementary Mary Beth Townsend, Sacred Heart Cathedral School

Job Description: Audience

Connect with us! 865-291-3310

www.knoxvillesymphony.com

The Boyd Family