Saturday, March 14, 2009

SymphonyKids Spotlight: Team VSO Orchestral Youth Concert Tour

Using as a mantra the NBA slogan (poached from Aristotle), "We are what we repeatedly do: excellence, then, is not an act but a habit," the VSO makes an analogy between sports and music in this slam-dunk full-orchestra presentation. The locker room is the green room, half time is intermission, and the big league is . . . the Boston Symphony!

Peter Hamlin (chair of the Middlebury College music department and an ex-radio announcer and guest in the following video clip) referees the program and narrates PDQ Bach's "Beethoven Five Sportscast." We'll tackle topics like performance pressure, perseverance, leadership, and teamwork, with examples drawn from the classical repertoire. Our "Rookie of the Year" is 16-year-old Tim Woos, who composed a world premiere for this event. We'll play the Olympic Fanfare, of course, and Take Me Out to the Ballgame--which is where Champ comes in!

Concerts will be presented during May, 2009:
Monday, May 11 -- Newport -- 9:15 and 11:15 AM
Tuesday, May 12 -- Swanton -- 9:30 and 11:15 AM
Wednesday, May 13 -- Barre -- 9:30 and 11:15 AM
Thursday, May 14 -- Rutland -- 9:30 and 11:15 AM
Friday, May 15 -- Manchester -- 9:30 and 11:00 AM

Tickets are $5 per student ($4 if on federal lunch subsidy program); $6 for extra adults (1 adult per 25 students may attend for free). For reservations and information, contact Eleanor Long at Eleanor@vso.org Click "Keep reading!" to watch a video segment with referee Peter Hamlin.