kidsbook
Peter Wolf and the
CSO for Kids: School Concerts February 18, 2022, 10:15 & 12:00
CSO for Kids: Family Matinees February 19, 2022, 11:00 & 12:45
Peter and the Wolf PERFORMERS
Members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Lidiya Yankovskaya conductor Magic Circle Mime Company guest artists
PROGRAM MONTGOMERY Starburst PROKOFIEV Peter and the Wolf
ABOUT THE PROGRAM What is musical imagery? The Members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra explore this question in the story of Peter and the Wolf, beautifully depicted in the music of Sergei Prokofiev. Accompanied by the imaginative performers of the Magic Circle Mime Company and their pantomimed storytelling, the orchestra will demonstrate how this music brings to life the story’s characters.
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CSO for Kids: PETER AND THE WOLF
Jessie Montgomery is a composer-violinist-educator from New York City’s Lower East Side, where her father managed a music studio. She was, in her words, “constantly surrounded by all different kinds of music.” Her own compositions have drawn from many diverse influences, such as African American spirituals, civil rights anthems, improvisational styles, modern jazz and film scoring.
Starburst was commissioned by the Sphinx Organization and premiered by its resident Sphinx Virtuosi in 2012. Here’s what Jessie Montgomery says about it:
“This work for string orchestra is a play on
imagery of rapidly changing musical colors. Exploding gestures are set next to gentle melodies to create a multidimensional soundscape. A common definition of a starburst, 'the rapid formation of large numbers of new stars in a galaxy at a rate high enough to alter the structure of the galaxy significantly,' lends itself to the nature of the Sphinx Virtuosi, and I wrote the piece with their dynamic in mind.
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As you listen to Starburst, what do you imagine when you hear the music? What story does the music tell? What musical elements (fast/slow, smooth/ choppy, high/low, soft/loud) feed your ideas?
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Sergei Prokofiev
[say: “SAIR-ghay pro-CO-fee-off”] was born in 1891 in a village in Ukraine. By the time he was 5, he was composing his own music. Soon he and his mother moved to St. Petersburg, where he could study at the oldest conservatory (music school) in Russia. Prokofiev especially liked to write music that would tell a story, such as Peter and the Wolf, which uses instruments of the orchestra to portray each of the characters. Since Prokofiev’s music cleverly matches just the right instrument to each character, the listener is easily able to envision the story as it unfolds through the orchestra’s performance of each scene. Prokofiev never forgot what it meant to be a child nor how children think, which is why this music is still loved by children and adults worldwide.
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CSO for Kids: PETER AND THE WOLF
Peter STRINGS
duck OBOE
Let’s meet the characters in our story and the instruments that represent them:
cat CLARINET
bird FLUTE wolf HORN
grandfather BASSOON hunters TRUMPET & TIMPANI
Follow along with the story as it is told through the instruments of the orchestra. What images or pictures come to mind as you listen to this music? What do you hear in the music that helps you imagine these pictures? Listen to the music here.
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Early one morning, Peter opened the gate and walked out into the big green meadow. As he wandered through nature, he saw a bird perched in a tree, a duck swimming in a pond and a cat crawling through the grass.
Listen for this musical imagery: The string instruments playing the skipping theme of Peter in the meadow The flute playing the flittering theme of the bird The oboe playing the waddling theme of the duck The clarinet playing the sneaky theme of the cat
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CSO for Kids: PETER AND THE WOLF
Seeing the duck in the pond, the bird flew down and asked, “What kind of bird are you if you can’t fly?” The duck replied, “What kind of bird are you if you can’t swim?” They argued and argued as the duck swam in the pond, and the bird hopped back and forth along the shore. Spying the argument, the cat decided this was a good time to catch the bird!
Listen for this musical imagery: The flute and oboe playing faster and faster, back and forth, as the bird and duck argue The sneaky low notes on the clarinet as the cat tiptoes toward the bird The quick change in the music when the cat pounces and the bird flies up into the tree
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Just then, Peter’s grandfather came out. He was upset because Peter had gone into the meadow. “What would you do if a wolf should come out of the forest?” Peter was not afraid of wolves, but his grandfather took Peter by the hand, led him home and locked the gate. As soon as Peter had gone, a big wolf came out of the forest.
Listen for this musical imagery: The cranky-sounding grandfather portrayed by the bassoon Peter’s theme that confidently shows he is not afraid of wolves The French horns announcing the arrival of the big wolf
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CSO for Kids: PETER AND THE WOLF
In a twinkling, the cat climbed up the tree, while the bird flew onto a branch high in the tree. The duck quacked, and in her excitement, jumped out of the pond. Alas, she could not escape the wolf, and with one gulp, he swallowed her!
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Listen for this musical imagery: The clarinet playing higher and higher as the cat climbs up the tree The quacking sounds of the oboe as the duck jumps out of the pond The sad, slow theme of the duck after it has been devoured by the wolf
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Without any fear at all, Peter stood behind the gate, watching as the wolf circled the tree. Peter then ran home, got a strong rope and climbed up the high stone wall. One of the branches of the tree, around which the wolf was walking, stretched out over the wall. Grabbing ahold of the branch, Peter lightly climbed up to the tree. He said to the bird, “Fly down and circle over the wolf’s head — only take care that he doesn’t catch you.” The wolf snapped angrily at the bird, but the bird was clever, and the wolf couldn’t catch him!
Listen for this musical imagery: Peter’s courageous theme as he takes a risk to capture the wolf The bird flitting about, teasing the wolf The wolf snapping at the bird
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CSO for Kids: PETER AND THE WOLF
Meanwhile, Peter made a lasso, and after carefully letting it down, caught the wolf by the tail and pulled with all his might. Just then, hunters came out of the woods, eager to kill the wolf. Peter said, “Don’t shoot! I’ve already caught him. Now help me take him to the zoo.”
Listen for this musical imagery: The strings spiraling downward as the lasso descends toward the wolf’s tail The low brass instruments portraying the wolf struggling to get free The timpani and trumpets announcing the hunters as they emerge from the forest
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What a triumphant procession: Peter at the head, and after him, the hunters leading the wolf, and winding up the procession, his grandfather and the cat. Above them flew the bird, chirping merrily, and the duck could be heard quacking inside the wolf’s stomach, for in his hurry, the wolf had swallowed it whole.
Listen for each character’s theme as each one marches triumphantly toward the zoo.
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CSO for Kids: PETER AND THE WOLF
Meet the Conductor LIDIYA YANKOVSKAYA Russian-American conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya has conducted more than 40 world premieres, as well as repertoire ranging from Carmen and Queen of Spades to Price and Prokofiev. She received recognition from the Chicago Tribune, which praised her as “the very model of how to survive adversity, and also how to thrive in it,” while naming her 2020 Chicagoan of the Year. As music director of Chicago Opera Theater, she is one of only two women to hold that title at a major opera company in the United States. Her experiences as a refugee inspired her to found the Refugee Orchestra Project, which celebrates the lives of refugees through music, and has brought that message to hundreds of thousands of listeners around the world.
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Meet the Guest Artists
MAGIC CIRCLE MIME COMPANY more than 30 years! The Magic Circle Mime Company performs many shows with orchestras in the United States and around the world. They both have A mime is a person who tells a story studied music and theater, and have with body movement but without used their backgrounds to create words. The mimes you will see (but wonderful programs that help to not hear!) in Peter and the Wolf are Maggie Petersen and Doug MacIntyre. bring orchestral music alive for young They have been working together for audiences. The Magic Circle Mime Company combines visual theater with orchestral music in Peter and the Wolf.
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CSO for Kids: PETER AND THE WOLF
CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA • RICCARDO MUTI zell music director DUAIN WOLFE Chorus Director and Conductor JESSIE MONTGOMERY Mead Composer-in-Residence HILARY HAHN Artist-in-Residence
MEMBERS OF THE CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FOR THIS PERFORMANCE VIOLINS Robert Chen Concertmaster David Taylor So Young Bae Kozue Funakoshi Susan Synnestvedt Simon Michal Matous Michal Cornelius Chiu Mihaela Ionescu Hermine Gagné Baird Dodge Melanie Kupchynsky Ronald Satkiewicz Nancy Park Ying Chai Kiju Joh Michele Lekas Florentina Ramniceanu VIOLAS Catherine Brubaker Sunghee Choi Youming Chen Wei-Ting Kuo Maxwell Raimi Carol Cook
CELLOS Richard Hirschl Gary Stucka Ji-Ye Kim Linc Smelser Calum Cook Paula Kosower
TRUMPET Esteban Batallán
BASSES Daniel Armstrong Robert Kassinger Bradley Opland Ian Hallas
PERCUSSION James Ross Patricia Dash
FLUTES Yevgeny Faniuk Kayla Burgraaf OBOES Laura Yawney Amelia Merriman CLARINETS John Bruce Yeh Teresa Reilly
TROMBONE Michael Mulcahy TIMPANI David Herbert
LIBRARIAN Mark Swanson ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL John Deverman Director Anne MacQuarrie Manager, CSO Auditions and Orchestra Personnel
BASSOON Miles Maner HORNS Daniel Gingrich Oto Carrillo Susanna Gaunt
The CSO’s music director position is endowed in perpetuity by a generous gift from the Zell Family Foundation. Support for Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association programming for children and families is provided by Abbott Fund, Archer Daniels Midland Company, John Hart and Carol Prins, Kinder Morgan, PNC, Megan and Steve Shebik, Michael and Linda Simon, the Walter and Caroline Sueske Charitable Trust and an anonymous family foundation.
Allstate Insurance Company is the CSOA Youth Education Program Sponsor.
CSO for Kids media partner:
Kidsbook© is a publication of the Negaunee Music Institute. For more information, call 312-294-3410 or email institute@cso.org. Content for Kidsbook was created by Katy Clusen with graphic design by Shawn Sheehy.
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INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA THE STRING FAMILY includes violin, viola, cello, bass and harp. These instruments are made of wood and strings and are played by vibrating the strings using a bow, or plucking or striking the strings with the fingers.
Violin
Viola
Cello
THE WOODWIND FAMILY includes flute, oboe,
clarinet, bassoon and saxophone. These instruments all have the same basic shape: a long tube with a mouthpiece at one end. The flute is played by blowing across a mouthpiece to create a vibration. Oboe, clarinet, bassoon and saxophone are all played by blowing air into a single or double reed attached to the mouthpiece, creating a vibration that results in sound.
Harp
Bass
THE BRASS FAMILY includes horn, trumpet,
trombone, euphonium and tuba. Brass instruments make a sound when the players vibrate their lips inside a mouthpiece, which is fitted into the instrument. The players can change pitch on a trumpet, horn or tuba by pressing on valves. Trombone players change pitch by moving the slide back and forth.
Trumpet Flute
Oboe Bassoon
Clarinet
Trombone
Saxophone
Tuba
Horn
THE PERCUSSION FAMILY includes snare drum, bass drum, gong, triangle, xylophone, timpani and piano, among many others. Percussion instruments are struck, scraped or shaken.
Timpani
Snare Drum
Xylophone
Cymbal
Piano