Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra Visit in March

All students are going to hear a "Star Spangled Music" concert at Hill Auditorium this week. While Elaine's and Anita's classes have moved, sometimes with scarves, to the music's diffent sections, Susan's and Reneta's classes have listened for certain musical motifs within each composer's piece.

We will hear Dvorak's New World Symphony's second movement. We have played this on soprano recorders in recent weeks.
In addition, John Phillip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" is on tap. In February, we read a score of a simpler march and played it on our Orff pitched instruments along with non-pitched instruments.
Bernstein's "West Side Story" was sung- Maria, America, and I Feel Pretty (boys, not so much!)have gotten us ready for the symphony's version.
We listened to William Grant Still's Symphony 1, third movement- a bringing together of African-American musical ideas with classical sensibilities. Still was the first African- American composer whose music was played by major orchestras.
Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" had us listening for trumpets, low brass and percussion. We talked briefly about WHY he chose these instruments to convey his respect for the common man. The youngest kids marched in, proudly (I hope) believing in the importance of the "common kid".
Ann Arbor's own William Balcom's composition "Seattle Slew" rounds out the program.