Classical music is for everyone, and that was nowhere more apparent than at a recent Santa Maria Philharmonic Orchestra performance at the Pacific Christian School in Orcutt, where hundreds of fourth graders from across Santa Barbara and SLO counties listened to and watched a performance of Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev. The free outreach concert included four performances that reached more than 2,000 students, marking another successful installment of the Santa Maria Philharmonic Society’s (SMPS) annual tradition of performing the iconic orchestral piece intended for young listeners.
“I think Peter and the Wolf is a great place for children to start their classical music experience because there is a story and narrator, and each character is represented by the flute, or the oboe, or the string section,” said Gina Oh, director of education for the SMPS. “We have been very fortunate that the Wood-Claeyssens Foundation has donated $15,000 to continue music education in our schools, and we use all of that for our music van and Peter and the Wolf.”
The music van goes out to schools across the county to introduce third graders to orchestral instruments, allowing them to play and interact with instruments and musicians. The following year, many of those students attend the Peter and the Wolf concert. Several students, Oh explained, go on to take lessons with SMPS musicians either in groups or privately after enjoying one of the outreach programs.
Sitting in the audience at the last of this year’s Peter and the Wolf performances on Feb. 25 was fourth-grader Vivian McKenzie, who enjoyed her music van experience so much last year that she signed up for cello lessons in a beginning strings program taught by SMPS violist Kathleen Hill. The concert was a chance for the fourth grader to see professional musicians perform on instruments she and her peers are busy learning how to play.
“I like how they mixed the music with the characters,” McKenzie said. “I think it would be a fun thing to do.”
The outreach provided by the music van and the Peter and the Wolf concert are vitally important in engaging young kids and inspiring them to begin a musical education. The Santa Maria Philharmonic Orchestra does more than just perform for young people—it collaborates with them as well. The Feb. 28 Pops Internationale performance included two guest ensembles from Allan Hancock College: the Allan Hancock College Singers and the Ballet Folklorico de Allan Hancock.
These collaborations offer more than just a chance for young performing artists to run with the big dogs, but also exposes the orchestra to more ears than a concert of solely orchestral music could provide. It’s the SMPS’s dedication to high quality performance and collaboration that has helped make the organization a strong cornerstone of the community, explained Brian Asher Alhadeff, who acted as guest conductor for the Peter and the Wolf and Pops Internationale concerts.
“When you see the name Philharmonic at the end of Santa Maria, that carries some value, and they really live up to it,” Alhadeff said. “This has allowed for a blossoming of collaboration, and it also adds to the diversity and the spectrum of people we are able to reach with this concert.”
The SMPS will also reap some of its sown seed for the season finale concert on April 18, which will showcase the winners of the organization’s new concerto competition. Several soloists, all under the age of 18, will perform concerto selections with the orchestra performing under the baton of longtime SMPS maestro John Farrer, an unbelievably valuable opportunity for a young classical musician to have.
An upcoming installment of the Rendezvous chamber concert series features I Musici D’Amore. Though the house concert won’t feature any youth collaboration, the SMPS still offers a large discount for students. The SMPS’s youth outreach is more than just an investment in the organization’s future, Oh explained, but the future of young people throughout the county who may receive some kind of benefit from attending concerts, enjoying outreach programs, or studying privately with SMPS players.
“I think that it’s important to keep music education alive because studies have shown that if you learn a musical instrument, your test scores are higher in math and English,” Oh said. “Their test scores get higher, and they are able to sit and focus for longer.”
Contact Arts Editor Joe Payne at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 5-12, 2015.
