EMFkids: Wednesday, Week 2

Today at EMFkids we continued to learn about the different style periods in Western music, and today we learned about the Classical period.  Everyone got to hear music by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, and we also acted out the story of Mr. Haydn and his Surprise Symphony.

The brass section introduced us to each of their instruments: we saw and heard music from the French horns, trumpets, trombones, bass trombone, and tuba.  Later we got to use our own instruments outside while we practiced on the recorder and explored various percussion instruments.

Each day we have added a level of complexity to the musical activities for the campers, and they have handled the challenges well.  They have learned about and participated in two and three part singing, following a conductor, and practiced playing a variety of instruments.

We have exciting plans for musical and art projects, and we'll look forward to seeing you then.

-'Miss Susannah'
Susannah Steele

EMFkids: Tuesday, Week 2

Today at EMF kids we started exploring the sounds of music from the Baroque Era (~1600-1750).    We learned that lots of Baroque music dresses up the notes with fancy, wiggly notes called ornamentation.  We also talked about that way many Baroque pieces have several different melodies all going on at the same time, weaving in and out of one another.  We listened to some pieces by J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel and tried to count how many different people we heard playing as the various voices made their entrances in a fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier.

Later in the morning, conductor Thomas Hong introduced us to the percussion section, where we saw and listened to the sounds of the timpani, cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, and xylophone.  After a snack break we worked on an art project, played drums, sang more songs, and started to learn about how to play the recorder.   It was a full morning, and we look forward to seeing you all tomorrow!

-'Miss Susannah'
Susannah Steele

EMFkids: Monday, Week 2

Week 2 of EMF kids is off to a good start!  It looks like we have a really great group of 15 six through eight year olds joining us at EMF kids this week.  Here are some of our activities from this morning:

-Circle time with singing and moving to several new songs.  We also played rhythm sticks, drums, and got to see a real trumpet up close.
-Listened to and described the sounds of the four instrument families.
-Outside parachute songs and dances
-Visited the string family during an EMF orchestra rehearsal, where we saw and heard a violin, viola, cello, double bass, and harp.

Miss Stephanie, Miss Diana and I are looking forward to seeing you all again tomorrow,

-'Miss Susannah'
Susannah Steele

EMFkids: Friday, Week 1

Thanks to all of our campers and families for a great week!  Hope to see you all next year.

-'Miss Susannah'
Susannah Steele

Concerto Competition Winners

After an intense concerto competition Eastern Music Festival can finally announce our six student winners! Each winner will perform their winning movement during one of the last two Young Artist Orchestra concerts on Thursday July 26 and Friday July 27. The winners are:

Hilary Zirkle, clarinet
Tiffany Laraia, viola
Lauren Osaka, flute
Sterling Elliott, cello
Nathan Lowry, violin
Mai Mizuno, piano

Congratulations to our winners and all who participated in the competition.

EMFkids: Thursday, Week 1

It's been another full morning for our EMF kids today!

Some of the highlights:

We continued working on ensemble singing with two different parts at once.

We put our rain sticks together, and tomorrow we'll use them to experiment with making weather sounds.

As usual we visited an orchestra rehearsal, and today the string family showed us all its members. We saw and heard a violin, viola, cello, and double bass.  Does anyone remember the full name of the cello?

Diana Tsaliovich, a violinist on EMF faculty came to visit our class.  She played several excerpts from different pieces and the children shared what the sound reminded them of (silver, a rainbow, people dancing, and a girl laughing were a few ideas).

Tomorrow we will have camp at the Music Academy of NC.  (You'll find a link to the address below.) Campers will follow the regular schedule, beginning at 9 am.  Parents are invited to come at 11:30 to hear a bit more about the Eastern Music Festival and Music Academy of NC, as well as a short demonstration of what we have learned this week. I'll look forward to seeing you all tomorrow!

-'Miss Susannah'
Susannah Steele

Music Academy of NC

EMFkids 2012: Wednesday, Week 1

We had a full morning of music and creative activities this morning with EMFkids! 

Like yesterday, everyone had a chance to pick and play a percussion instrument.  (The duck-shaped guiro was very popular this morning!)  This time rather than playing in a large group, campers got to draw and color the sounds they heard while each took a turn playing.

We visited the percussion family of the orchestra and got to hear quite a few different kinds of sounds.  The conductor José-Luis Novo told us about the timpani, bass drum, several different cymbals, a xylophone, a glockenspiel and others.  I wonder if anyone remembers what the word 'glockenspiel' means?

Other highlights of the day included seeing and touching two different trumpets, painting what we heard while listening to Saint-Saens' 'Aviary' from Carnival of the Animals, and singing and moving to old and new songs.  They even worked on singing a new song in a two-part ensemble.  Tomorrow we're visiting the string family, and we may have a special guest visit our class!  

Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow,

-'Miss Susannah'