Child and Music… How relevant is such a unity these days? At what age can children be introduced to classical music, to real examples of high art, opening the door to a wonderful world that most do not even know about for beginner listeners?
Answers to these and other questions are provided by the “Children’s Philharmonic”, created two years ago at the “Literary Prydniprovya” museum. Traditionally, a small person gets his first musical impressions in the family.
Unfortunately, not every family can create such a creative atmosphere for a child, where listening to music and making music will be natural. The Skuratovsky family manages to fill this: Volodymyr – dad, a talented musicologist, composer, pianist, teacher; Olga is a mother, creative teacher, musicologist; Mary’s 15-year-old daughter, a young pianist and violinist.
Every month, they invite listeners aged 3-8 years along with their parents to their meetings at the museum and create a “chamber”, almost home environment for getting to know Music.
At each concert, or more precisely – “concert-fairy tale”, children have a rare opportunity to hear music of various genres and styles performed live (first of all, piano, as well as other instruments).
The authors of the program compose all the musical fairy tales themselves, drawing inspiration for this from various sources: communication with children, encounters with nature, literature and folklore, and, of course, music itself. Whatever the plot of the fairy tale, it definitely teaches children compassion, kindness, courage, sensitivity. After all, by understanding music, we learn to understand a person. It is important that the child is not just a passive listener, but feels like a participant in the events taking place.
It is interesting that the authors of the program turn not only to the traditional classics for this age – children’s works by E. Grieg, R. Schumann, P. Tchaikovsky, S. Prokofiev, but also to the “adult” works of A. Vivaldi, I.S. Bach, V. A. Mozart, F. Schubert, F. Chopin, S. Rachmaninoff and many others.
Understanding the age needs of young listeners, the presenters and performers of the “Children’s Philharmonic” strive to perform a synthetic action (music – words – movement – images). Young music lovers can safely be called co-authors in the creation of each concert-“performance”: they learn to consciously listen and perceive music, as well as reproduce it through plastic intonation, playing with noisy instruments or with the help of visual arts.
It’s nice to realize that even 4-5 year olds already have their “likes” in the classics. They not only recognize fragments of music, but can also name the names of familiar composers in the “Children’s Philharmonic” quizzes. The children especially liked “The Tale of the Wonder Boy” (with music by V.A. Mozart), “Carnival of Animals” by K. Saint-Saëns, “Sunny Boy” (with music by S.S. Prokofiev), “The Tale of the Sad a melody that dreamed of becoming fun” (based on “Children’s Album” by P.I. Tchaikovsky), “Shurshik” (based on “Album for Children” by V.I. Skuratovsky).
The “Children’s Philharmonic” program invites young listeners and their parents to new musical fairy tales this year.
“Children should live in a world of beauty, games, fairy tales, music, drawing, fantasy, creativity”
Vasyl Oleksandrovych Sukhomlinskyi
Tel. for information: 778-01-00 (Literary Dnieper Museum)
