Austin Symphony Orchestra Family Concert

Austin Symphony Family Concert: Up Close and (Almost) Personal

Bass Concert Hall,

April 21

With the orchestra in street clothes and everyone sporting bright yellow Symph-o-Vision glasses that turned even the dullest brown wall at the Bass into a rainbow of light, the kid-packed audience was ready for a colorful family musical journey. Host Marco Perella explained the ritual of tuning up the orchestra, then introduced guest conductor Timothy Muffit and off we went, led through the Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, by British composer Benjamin Britten. The Guide takes audiences (of all ages) on an instrument-by-instrument examination of the various parts of a symphony orchestra, then puts the whole thing in motion with Britten's reinterpretation of a rather well-known piece by Englishman Henry Purcell. After each instrument has the chance to play the main theme, all the instruments play chase with a fugue of Britten's invention, with the brass section playing a stately finale of the Purcell theme to conclude. To help with identification of the various instruments was Symph-o-Vision: More than just yellow hallucinogenic-inspired spectacles, Symph-o-Vision is several video cameras picking out various instruments for projection onto an enormous screen behind the orchestra. During the Britten piece, and throughout the afternoon, the audience got an up-close and (almost) personal view of the array of instruments and the ways they are blown, struck, fingered, plucked, bowed, and banged. An added bonus: seeing Maestro Muffit from the front as he led the orchestra through the Guide.

Following the Britten piece, with everyone now up to speed on the basic parts of a symphony orchestra, it was on to a story told in music and pictures. The music was Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition as orchestrated by Maurice Ravel: a series of musical interpretations of Mussorgsky's wandering into an exhibition of works of art one nice day, oh, about 100 years ago. The stately and familiar introduction, or "Promenade," was followed by the children-at-play brightness of the "Tuileries," the sinister and dark story of the Russian witch "Baba-Yaga" and her hut with legs, and, finally, the majestic images of Kiev's old churches in "The Great Gate of Kiev." All the pieces were accompanied by fantastic illustrations by area school kids of the music's subject matter.

Finally, local singer-songwriter Tish Hinojosa and her band showed how even pop songs can synch up with an orchestra to full -- and fun -- effect. The bouncy Latino flair of Cada Nino and the Cumbia Polka y Mas had the orchestra, and the audience pleasantly tapping and bopping in the stately old Bass. A fine warm-up for the symphony's summertime Children's Day Art Park series to come.