Storytelling Through Symphonic Sounds

A demonstration of the power of music without words

Reagan High School Symphony Orchestra

October 17, 2014

Harry Potter Suite by John Williams

John Williams was born in 1932 in Long Island, New York, and later moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1948. He studied composition at UCLA. After serving in the Air Force, Williams returned to New York to study piano at the Juilliard School of Music. He worked as a

jazz pianist for a time before moving back to Los Angeles to begin his career in the film studios.

Mr. Williams has composed the music for close to eighty films and has composed some of the most famous

themes ever written for cinema. Some of these include Harry Potter, Jaws, Close Encounters of the

Third Kind, ET - the Extraterrestrial, Jurassic Park, the Star Wars Pre-

episode and Trilogy, the Indiana Jones Trilogy, Home Alone, and Empire of the Sun. With 45 Academy Award nominations, John Williams has the most nominations of any person alive, and is tied for second ever after Walt

Disney! 

Fairy TalesFairy tales often have characters such as goblins, elves, trolls, giants, witches. There are scary villains, heroes, magic

kingdoms and enchantments.

Harry Potter is our most famous modern day fairy tale.

John Williams conducts and discusses

Suite fromHarry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh-gEcgVH_4

Hanzel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdink

The idea for the opera was proposed to Humperdinck by his sister, who approached him about writing music for songs that she had written for her children for Christmas based on "Hansel and Gretel". After several revisions, the musical sketches and the songs were turned into a full-scale opera.

 The opera was first performed on 23 December 1893, conducted by Richard Strauss. It has been associated with Christmas since its earliest performances and today it is still most often performed at Christmas time.

Hansel and Gretel Gamehttp://

www.classicalkusc.org/kids/opera/index.asp

Listen carefully… there is a quiz at the end

“Aquarium” from The Carnival of the Animalsby Camille Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saens (born October 9, 1835 in Paris, France. When Camille Saint-Saens was just a toddler, his mother and his great-aunt began teaching him music. He was only five years old when he gave his first public piano performance. When he was seven, he began to study with other teachers, and he had already begun composing his own music. He became one of the most famous French composers. Saint-Saens also liked to write poetry, scientific papers, and essays about music.

He wrote The Carnival of the Animals at Carnival time for a friend who was a cellist. When the piece was done, it was a small chamber piece. Today, however, it is often performed by the entire orchestra.

After the first performance of the piece, Saint-Saëns considered it too frivolous to be performed again. After all, he was a serious composer not given to writing pieces that were jokes. During his lifetime, he only let the complete work be performed again one more time, and that was at the request of his long-time friend and composer Franz Liszt. The only other part of the piece that he would allow to be performed was the ever popular and beautiful movement The Swan.

Finally, he relented. He agreed that only after he died could The Carnival of the Animals could be performed for audiences everywhere. Since then, it has become one of his most popular, if not the most popular piece that he has written. With the jokes and humor that describe the different animals, the piece dances its way into listeners’ hearts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyFpZ5MZ7kk

Videos taken at the Sydney Aquarium

Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (l840-1908) came from a wealthy family. When he was young he studied the piano and the cello but always wanted to compose music. His family wanted him to join the Russian Navy and he did, but when he was 17 years old, his piano teacher introduced him to a well known composer of the time, Balakirev, who decided to take Nicolai as a pupil because he was so talented. Rimsky-Korsakov continued his studies and became a famous composer and teacher.

He is best known for his compositions that paint beautiful pictures in music by using the colors of sound made by each instrument of the orchestra. This is called orchestration, and Rimsky-Korsakov is known as its master.

StorytellingBefore printed books and newspapers, storytelling was the way people shared information, traditions, and entertainment. Storytellers traveled from village to village, bringing news and tales. Fairy tales were first told by storytellers and later put into the book forms we know now.

The 1001 Arabian Nights were such stories, meant to entertain but also to teach a lesson about good ways to live life and become a good person.

One popular story from the Arabian Nights was the tale of Scheherazade. This tale was set to music by the Russian composer, Rimsky-Korsakov.

Sheherezade Gamehttp

:/www.classicalkusc.org/kids/sche/base.htm