Monday, February 29, 2016

Music Inspires at Healy Elementary!

Linden Christ, Director of Education and Outreach

Healy Elementary School had an exciting week of music called Music Inspires!   This week long program is provided by Classical Kids Music Education, Oistrakh Symphony Orchestra, and Chicago Opera Theater.  Each year we bring Music Inspires to two of our Opera for All schools. One Monday, the students attend an assembly with two professional actors, a string quartet, and your’s truly!   This week focused on CKME’s production of Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery.   Our task is to help the students relate to Vivaldi and his beautiful music.  Vivaldi was the „Rock Star“ of his day, composing over 600 pieces of music.   We connected Vivaldi’s fame with today’s hit, Hello by Adele.   The string quartet played the music and I sang this song and encouraged the students to sing along with me.   There was an abundance of giggling and then all the students joined in singing „Hello“! On Tuesday, Daniel Grambow, our COT Education Assistant and I visited with all five of the Healy 4th grade classrooms and presented them with a lesson plan focused on their three ‚V‘ vocabulary words, Violins, Venice, & Vivaldi.  We shared a violin that they could touch and pass around, as well as Venetian masks and played excerpts from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and the A Minor Violin Concerto.



One of our teaching artists, Sara Litchfield commented, “ I was really blown away with some of the students reactions to Vivaldi's Four Seasons. One very quiet, thoughtful student named Kenny thought the movement must be about spring because it sounded like the music was growing like plants and flowers to in the spring. Surprisingly, he was not the only one with this response!



On Friday, the students returned to the auditorium to see the full performance of Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery with the Oistrakh Symphony Orchestra and the professional actors from Classical Kids Music Education.   The students were mesmerized by this event.

One student asked if he could be a donor and donate $50 from his allowance so that other students could experience this program!   

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