About a thousand parents and children stop by to enjoy this annual event, with musical offerings customized to engage young children at their level. And for kids of this age group, that means hands-on. A favorite on the schedule is the Instrument Petting Zoo, where kids can touch, blow, and squawk sounds out of every orchestral instrument that catches their eyes and ears. Short class-demonstrations have families sing, dance, drum, or move together in true participatory fashion while getting to preview the class experience at Crowden first-hand. Also on the agenda are instrument-making sessions, performances by Crowden School students, a music sale, and a visit from “Mozart” himself. Of course, no festival would be complete without face painting, food, and prizes.
In a special collaboration with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, now three years running, the School will treat attendees to a concert experience that day, in a series called Very First Concerts (see details below). The 20-minute concert will be given at 11:00 a.m., with repeats at 11:40 a.m. and 12:20 p.m.
As Benjamin Simon, the SFCO’s musical director, describes it: “The program will introduce Mr. Béla Bartók, describe his tramping through the Hungarian/Romanian countryside in pursuit of folk tunes and how these folk tunes inspired his composing. Nine members of the S.F. Chamber Orchestra will be playing in our mini-orchestra; the repertoire will center on Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances and involve lots of dancing from our young audience. The idea is to introduce the idea of a composer, what they actually do, what might inspire them, and to show that they were (and are!) real, live human beings who just happen to write music.”
According to Crowden’s executive director, Doris Fukawa, Community Music Day and the Very First Concerts collaboration arose out of a realization that family concerts in the Bay Area are typically tailored to elementary and middle school children. “The youngest kids need to make noise and move around, and they have different attention spans and listening levels than older children. It can be stressful for parents to deal with these needs in a traditional concert hall setting, even one geared toward families. We saw a real niche-need to give families with kids aged 0–6 a joyful, age-appropriate experience with live classical music, and it’s proven a smash hit with audiences.”
Mark your calendars for the next in the series, coming to Crowden in January and June (for details visit here).