Robert Xavier Rodriguez’s short A Colorful Symphony is based on The Phantom Toll Booth, the 1961 novel by Norton Juster (illustrated by Jules Feiffer), about a boy named Milo who, one lazy afternoon, takes an imaginary drive through a toll booth to the Kingdom of Wisdom, across the Sea of Knowledge, where he has various adventures.
Rodriquez has recast the story as a journey to a land where sounds and colors are the same. And so it becomes a chance to learn about the properties of various musical instruments. Not to mention the music itself, which is sometimes compared to Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. This is another chance to bring small children to classical music.
A Colorful Symphony: Redwood Symphony, family Halloween concert with narration, Oct. 27, 3 p.m., Cañada College Main Theater, Redwood City, $10 to $25.