Storytelling Through Symphonic Sounds A demonstration of the power of music without words

1. Storytelling Through
Symphonic Sounds
A demonstration of the power of music without words
Reagan High School Symphony Orchestra
October 17, 2014

2. Harry Potter Suite
by John Williams

3. John Williams was born in 1932 in Long Island, New York, and
later moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1948. He studied
composition at UCLA. After serving in the Air Force, Williams
returned to New York to study piano at the Juilliard School of
Music. He worked as a jazz pianist for a time before moving
back to Los Angeles to begin his career in the film studios.
Mr. Williams has composed the music for close to eighty films
and has composed some of the most famous themes ever
written for cinema. Some of these include Harry Potter, Jaws,
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET - the Extraterrestrial, Jurassic
Park, the Star Wars Pre-episode and Trilogy, the Indiana Jones
Trilogy, Home Alone, and Empire of the Sun. With 45 Academy
Award nominations, John Williams has the most nominations of
any person alive, and is tied for second ever after Walt Disney!

4. Fairy Tales
Fairy tales often have characters such as goblins, elves,
trolls, giants, witches. There are scary villains, heroes,
magic kingdoms and enchantments.
Harry Potter is our most famous modern day fairy tale.

5. John Williams conducts and discusses
Suite from
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh-gEcgVH_4

6. Hanzel and Gretel
by Engelbert Humperdink

7. The idea for the opera was proposed to Humperdinck by his sister,
who approached him about writing music for songs that she had
written for her children for Christmas based on "Hansel and
Gretel". After several revisions, the musical sketches and the songs
were turned into a full-scale opera.
The opera was first performed on 23 December 1893, conducted
by Richard Strauss. It has been associated with Christmas since its
earliest performances and today it is still most often performed at
Christmas time.

8. Hansel and Gretel Game
http://www.classicalkusc.org/kids/opera/index.asp
Listen carefully… there is a quiz at the end 

9. “Aquarium” from The Carnival of the Animals
by Camille Saint-Saëns

10. Camille Saint-Saens (born October 9, 1835 in Paris, France. When Camille Saint-Saens
was just a toddler, his mother and his great-aunt began teaching him music. He was
only five years old when he gave his first public piano performance. When he was
seven, he began to study with other teachers, and he had already begun composing his
own music. He became one of the most famous French composers. Saint-Saens also
liked to write poetry, scientific papers, and essays about music.
He wrote The Carnival of the Animals at Carnival time for a friend who was a cellist.
When the piece was done, it was a small chamber piece. Today, however, it is often
performed by the entire orchestra.
After the first performance of the piece, Saint-Saëns considered it too frivolous to be
performed again. After all, he was a serious composer not given to writing pieces that
were jokes. During his lifetime, he only let the complete work be performed again one
more time, and that was at the request of his long-time friend and composer Franz
Liszt. The only other part of the piece that he would allow to be performed was the
ever popular and beautiful movement The Swan.
Finally, he relented. He agreed that only after he died could The Carnival of the Animals
could be performed for audiences everywhere. Since then, it has become one of his
most popular, if not the most popular piece that he has written. With the jokes and
humor that describe the different animals, the piece dances its way into listeners’ hearts.

11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyFpZ5MZ7kk
Videos taken at the Sydney Aquarium

13. Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (l840-1908) came from a wealthy family.
When he was young he studied the piano and the cello but always
wanted to compose music. His family wanted him to join the
Russian Navy and he did, but when he was 17 years old, his piano
teacher introduced him to a well known composer of the time,
Balakirev, who decided to take Nicolai as a pupil because he was so
talented. Rimsky-Korsakov continued his studies and became a
famous composer and teacher.
He is best known for his compositions that paint beautiful pictures
in music by using the colors of sound made by each instrument of
the orchestra. This is called orchestration, and Rimsky-Korsakov is
known as its master.

14. Storytelling
Before printed books and newspapers, storytelling was the
way people shared information, traditions, and entertainment.
Storytellers traveled from village to village, bringing news and
tales. Fairy tales were first told by storytellers and later put
into the book forms we know now.
The 1001 Arabian Nights were such stories, meant to
entertain but also to teach a lesson about good ways to live
life and become a good person.
One popular story from the Arabian Nights was the tale of
Scheherazade. This tale was set to music by the Russian
composer, Rimsky-Korsakov.

15. Sheherezade Game
http:/www.classicalkusc.org/kids/sche/base.htm