Children and adults alike have much to look forward to as the Starkville-Mississippi State University Symphony Association Family Concerts approach. On Friday, March 2 the symphony orchestra will present several daytime concerts for school children and a longer program for families at 7:30 p.m. in Lee Hall’s Bettersworth Auditorium on the Mississippi State campus. Barry E. Kopetz conducts.
The evening event will include Franz Schubert’s “Symphony No. 3 in D Major D. 200,” and excerpts from Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” Antonin Dvorak’s “New World Symphony,” Felix Mendelssohn’s “Violin Concerto, Movement 1” and Igor Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite Finale.” It will also feature a performance by Catherine Patriquin on tenor saxophone.
Three daytime programs for Starkville students will be tailored to the target audience, with sing-alongs to numbers including “Simple Gifts” and “Bought Me a Cat.”
“The 2018 Programs for Children will feature 135 elementary children playing recorders with the orchestra, a 37-voice, fourth-grade honor choir leading the singing, and images of children’s contest-winning art projected onto a screen,” said Joe Ray Underwood, Programs for Children chair.
Through a Mississippi Arts Commission grant, the Symphony Association is partnered with Carnegie Hall’s longest-running education initiative, Link Up, to present programs to Starkville-Oktibbeha County schools, a home school co-op and Starkville Christian School.
The Symphony Association has provided music education programming to children since the mid-1970s, with themes ranging from patriotic songs to Mississippi musicians. Programs for Children helps encourage and increase students’ understanding and appreciation of symphonic music, opera, dance and drama.
Starkville-MSU Symphony Association concerts are free to the public. For more information about the association, visit starkvillesymphony.org.
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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