EMFkids: Thursday, week 2

We had another exciting morning at EMFkids today.  Our musical style of the day was the Romantic Period, and we listened to a fancy virtuoso piece by Franz Liszt.  Later in the morning we visited the woodwind section of the orchestra, then returned to finish making our own French horns.  This was a popular activity, although many campers had a difficult time making a sound on their horns.  It's much harder than the recorders we've been playing all week!

Other highlights of the day include learning to read some rhythmic notation and adding another level of complexity to our ensemble pieces.  Today we got four different parts going with instruments and voices!

Tomorrow is our last morning of camp, and we'd like to thank all the parents and families for sharing your children with us.  Remember we'll be meeting at the Music Academy at our regular time (8:45/9am), but parents are invited to return at 11:30 to join us for the last half hour of camp.
Hope you all have had a great week, and we look forward to seeing you all in the morning.

-'Miss Susannah'
Susannah Steele 

Watch our Interview with pianist William Wolfram

We sat down with EMF faculty pianist William Wolfram to talk about piano, sports, and his upcoming performance of the Liszt Concert No. 1. Take a look:

EMFkids Visit the Orchestra

Yesterday our EMFkids Campers visited the Young Artist Orchestra and met the percussion family. Watch a few minutes of their visit as conductor Thomas Hong and the Young Artist percussionists introduce their instruments.

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