The Enchanted Symphony

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The Enchanted S ymp ony

illustrated by Elly MacKay

Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton

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Piccolino lived in a small village, famous for its charms. Its people were happy and creative—singing and dancing felt as natural to them as breathing. They cherished their families, their friendships, and the abundant green countryside around them.

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And they delighted in their exquisite opera house, where Piccolino’s father was the maestro of the orchestra.

Visitors came from miles around to enjoy the village’s delights. To keep the sightseers happy, the townspeople built more shops to sell trinkets, gadgets, and souvenirs.

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They baked sumptuous cookies and cakes and planted bigger and more colorful window boxes. But the busier and more prosperous they became, the more they lost touch with their own simple pleasures.

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One day, Piccolino noticed a faint purple mist creeping into the village. At first, everyone was too busy to be concerned. But soon it thickened and spread from home to home, garden to garden.

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It crept into cottages and shops, seeping through windows and under doors, until eventually the entire village was blanketed in fog.

Trees and flowers began to wilt. Birds no longer sang, and the sun, moon, and stars disappeared from view. People grew listless and dispirited. They stopped visiting with one another, or even going outside, and the town fell silent.

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This is an advance, uncorrected proof. Not for resale, duplication, or reposting. Please do not quote without comparison to the finished book.

The opera house sat empty but for Piccolino and his father, who summoned the energy each week to clean the pretty auditorium, lest the fog damage the velvet seats and curtains.

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They dusted the gold-trimmed balconies and crystal chandeliers, and they watered the drooping palms in the lobby—though it didn’t seem to help.

One day, as the maestro was sweeping the stage, Piccolino wandered over to the grand piano. Gently raising the lid, he played a simple melody that echoed in the empty space.

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The sound was startling and sweet, and the maestro paused to listen. For a moment, his spirits lifted, and he realized how much he had missed music. But without an audience, the orchestra had no reason to play.

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As the boy and his father prepared to close up for the day, Piccolino noticed something surprising: The palms in the lobby seemed to be standing taller. On a hunch, he ran back to the piano and played his little tune again. Sure enough, the palms looked fresher still.

Piccolino called to his father to come see what had happened. The maestro scratched his chin for a moment. Then, at Piccolino’s urging, he agreed to try an experiment.

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Returning home, they loaded their ailing houseplants onto a wagon and wheeled them to the opera house. Once again, when Piccolino played the piano, the plants seemed to brighten.

This called for an even bigger experiment.

With growing excitement, father and son pushed through the fog, knocking on doors and begging friends and neighbors to donate their sickly plants to an important cause.

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In time, the opera house was so filled with foliage that it began to look more like a garden than a theater.

Now the maestro joined his son at the piano. Together they played a lively air—but with so many poorly plants, one piano duet didn’t seem enough to help them all.

Piccolino and his father suddenly knew what to do.

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They placed chairs and music stands on the stage. They laid out pages of sheet music and lit the chandeliers.

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Then they braved the fog one last time to visit every member of the orchestra. They implored the musicians to rise above their melancholy and summon the strength to come immediately to the opera house. There was an audience that urgently needed their music.

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One by one, the bewildered musicians made their way to the stage. They slowly took their seats and began to tune their instruments.

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The maestro raised his baton, and there was a momentary hush. Piccolino pulled on a heavy rope that stretched to the ceiling. The great velvet curtains swung open.

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Plants of all shapes and sizes filled the hall to capacity, all the way to the uppermost tier. Every seat, every box, every balcony spilled over with greenery.

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The astonished musicians began to play— tentatively at first, but gradually building in strength and tempo as the joy of making music again lifted their spirits. And the plants responded in kind, nodding and swaying, their stems standing taller and firmer, their leaves rustling in appreciation.

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And then . . . the fog itself began to lift.

Piccolino ran to the opera house doors and flung them wide.

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Music poured into the streets, and rainbows of color returned to the cottages and gardens. Birds chirped sleepily, then began to sing.

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Curious villagers opened their doors and windows, then ventured outside, calling to friends and neighbors.

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Before long, a throng of people were wending their way through the village, enchanted by the glorious sounds emanating from the opera house.

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But there wasn’t a seat to be had, so they stood, shoulder to shoulder, crowding the square, their hearts so full of joy that they couldn’t help but nod and sway, then dance and sing.

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Eventually, the mysterious fog vanished altogether, leaving the village bathed in radiant light.

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And the boy, the maestro, and the townspeople understood that if they remained faithful to all that matters most, nothing could darken their days again.

Authors’ Note

In June 2020, we were, like most people in the world, confined to our homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We were acutely aware of the impact of the pandemic on the arts—concert halls, theaters, cinemas, and galleries around the world were shuttered, and audiences were unable to benefit from the comfort and joy of live performance. We were also aware of the degree to which we turned to nature to fill the gap in beauty and inspiration that the arts had always provided in our lives.

One day, we came across an image of a beautiful concert hall in Spain filled to capacity with house plants. A chamber quartet was on the stage, playing for this very unusual audience. The image was so striking, and our imaginations were piqued.

Research revealed that the Concert for the Biocene was an initiative by Víctor García de Gomar, the artistic director of the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, together with the artist Eugenio Ampudia, the Max Estrella Gallery, and curator Blanca De La Torre. The UceLi string quartet performed Puccini’s “Crisantemi” for an audience of 2,292 plants—one in every seat in the hall—as a celebration of the value of art, music, and nature. After the concert, Ampudia arranged for all the plants to be donated to the staff of the Hospital Clínic in Barcelona, as a gesture of gratitude for being at the front line of an unparalleled battle. That image of the plants in the opera house inspired us to write our own celebration of art, music, and nature, using the concert as the foundation for our story. While our purple fog may evoke the pandemic, to us, it symbolizes something larger: the creeping distractions that can prevent us from appreciating all that matters most. Which, for us, has always been family, community, nature, and the arts.

This is an advance, uncorrected proof. Not for resale, duplication, or reposting. Please do not quote without comparison to the finished book.

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The illustrations for this book were drawn, cut, set up in layers, and photographed with light.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-4197-6319-9

Text © 2023 Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton Illustrations © 2023 Elly MacKay

Book design by Pamela Notarantonio and Heather Kelly

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Published in 2023 by Abrams Books for Young Readers, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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For Janine, Julie, and Steve— with our love and gratitude —J.A. & E.W.H.

Thank you to my friends, for making the past couple of years brighter —E.M.