NC Symphony performs selections for fourth-graders

Jan. 17—HENDERSON — The North Carolina Symphony once again graced McGregor Hall on Tuesday for an educational concert for local students — this time, with an introduction courtesy of Secretary of Natural and Cultural Resources Reid Wilson.

Nearly every fourth-grader in Vance and Granville counties attended the concert.

"For over 90 years, the NC Symphony has enriched the lives of people in our state," said Wilson. "These musicians have worked so hard to be able play music so beautifully. I bet most of them started when they were your age, in elementary school — just like you can do."

He asked who among the crowd of 900 likes to listen to music — everybody raised their hands.

"That's right," Wilson said. "Music is so important to all of us, it brings us joy and sometimes even makes us want to sing and dance."

With that, the orchestra tuned their instruments before Associate Conductor Michelle Di Russo ran onto the stage and, without further ado, led the orchestra in a performance of Camille Saint-Saëns' "Bacchanale from Samson and Delilah."

The group puts on around 300 concerts every year, 40 of which are educational, for students. The repertoire changes each year but always aligns with the central theme — what makes music, music?

"Each piece is specifically selected to align with a particular concept of music, be it rhythm, tempo, melody or texture," said Director of Education Jason Spencer. "The music is selected by a team of people, including input from our conductor, artistic staff, and educators across the state."

Another component is introducing each family of instruments — strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion — as well as the conductor.

First, the strings — these are violins, cellos, violas and so on. They can be played pizzicato, by being plucked, or with a bow. The strings played "Holberg Suite" by Edvard Grieg to demonstrate their sound.

Next, Di Russo introduced volume — when instruments play quietly, it's called piano. Forte is when they play loudly. She asked students to say forte as loud as they could — they obliged. To show how dynamically volume can change in action, the orchestra played Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Overture" to "The Magic Flute," during which students were tasked with raising their hand whenever their heard the orchestra playing in forte.

The woodwinds displayed their prowess next — this family includes flutes, clarinets, bassoons, piccolos, saxophones, anything that uses a reed instead of a mouthpiece.

Rhythm determines when sounds are played and for how long. That is marked on a sheet of music using two numbers, one on top of the other. The top notes how many beats there are in a measure. The bottom notes what kind of note gets a beat, though that's usually only a worry for people reading sheet music.

Most songs use common time — four beats per measure with quarter notes getting one beat each. A waltz, however, uses three-four — those three beats per measure give waltzes that elegant, bouncy and, well, waltz-y sort of sound.

See, the trickiest part of writing about music is the part where the writer tries to describe an auditory phenomenon — some things are simply better heard.

The orchestra played Amy Beach's "Bal masqué, Opus 22" a waltz, to demonstrate how different tempos can change the sound of music.

Next up were the brass — trombones, trumpets and tubas, among others. These are made of metal and use mouthpieces, funnel-shaped pieces of metal of varying sizes that fit into the horn.

Di Russo then taught the students about rondeau form, a song or poem that starts with a refrain before launching into a new melody, a process that repeats until the end. "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin follows that form. Again, students were tasked with holding their hands high whenever they heard the refrain.

Lastly, percussion is a family of nearly everything and anything else — drums, xylophones, triangles, whirligigs and more. They played a little ditty from "Super Mario Bros," which seemed to get the crowd talking.

Tempo determines how fast a song is played — Di Russo, the conductor, uses a baton to set the tempo and change it. She taught the kids some basic hand movements and led the orchestra in Jacques Offenbach's famous "Can Can" from "Orpheus in the Underworld."

"You love that one, isn't it such a good one," Di Russo asked. The crowd cried "yes!"

A melody is an arrangement of sounds listened to as a single entity — the best are the ones that get stuck in people's heads long after they hear it. Though, that isn't always a good thing, Di Russo joked, like in the case of "Baby Shark," the irritatingly catchy viral sensation that went around some years ago.

The orchestra opted to play a decidedly nicer melody, "Simple Gifts" by Joseph Brackett. Fun fact, Aaron Copeland, the famed dean of American composers, incorporated it into his piece "Appalachian Spring," one of the better pieces of American art. The kids sang along to the melody.

"We want you to be the best listeners that you can be," Di Russo told the crowd of the lessons, "so that when you go to the concert hall, you know what to listen for."

To bring all those concepts and instruments together, the orchestra played "Tico-Tico no fubá" by Zequinha de Abreu to give the kids some practice in identifying them.

Enthusiasm seemed high, and when the orchestra played that final note on each piece, the crowd went wild.

Jane Frazier is a member of the Embassy Cultural Center Foundation board and president of the Henderson Community Concert Association, the two entities responsible for getting the orchestra in town each year. They've been doing so for the last 40, said Frazier. Before McGregor Hall was constructed in 2016, the concerts were held at Vance-Granville Community College.

The NC Symphony makes things easy by sending material ahead of time to students, so they'll have an idea of what they'll be learning at the concert. Many pieces of music seek to evoke something — whether it's the idea of a dark cloud or the feeling of rocking on a wooden chair by candlelight, Frazier said.

"They begin to feel what they hear," said Frazier. "Children are like a sponge."

Tuesday's concert is just one way McGregor Hall serves the community, she said. She asked the community to support the theater.

Afterwards, Wilson took a tour of Perry Memorial Library right next door alongside State Librarian Michelle Underhill and Tiwanna Nevels, assistant state librarian. Library Director Patti McAnally showed them across the building's two floors, from the kiva to the history room, from fiction to non-fiction.

"I was honored to be able to share this great library with our state officials," said MacAnally after the fact. "Wilson oversees the State Library, whose staff, including Underhill and Nevels, provide vital support to North Carolina's public libraries through grants, training, North Carolina Cardinal administration, and so much more. It was nice to be able to show them what we have accomplished at our library with the help of their funding and support."

Underhill said she was pleased to see Perry Memorial create a place for everybody.

"Seems like libraries are more important than ever," Wilson told McAnally. "For a couple of reasons — you have so many services you provide. Plus, facts and reality live here."

"I mean, fiction does too, obviously. But people come here to learn and understand what's real and what's not. Our society these days is having some trouble with that. There's a lot of misinformation out there. People come here for real information."