December 19, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Portland, Ore. … Symphony Storytimes programs with live musical accompaniment by Oregon Symphony musicians will continue at the Central Branch of the Multnomah County Library in February as a result of an innovative ongoing partnership between the Library and the Symphony’s Education and Community Programs department.
The next series of storytimes will feature weekly events at the Central Library throughout the month of February, where Symphony musicians will perform live to music-related stories read by Youth Services Kate Carter, Ruth Allen and Lee Catalano; storytimes will be held on Sat., Feb. 7, 14, 21 and 28 at 1:30 p.m. This free series of stories told through music will be followed by an opportunity for kids to play the musical instruments and make arts-and-crafts versions of the instruments to take home. The Central branch of the Multnomah County Library is located at 801 S.W. 10th Ave. in downtown Portland. The Storytimes project will continue at the Gresham Library in March.
This program has grown in popularity with each series of storytimes; in November, over 90 people attended the final storytime at the Albina Library. “It’s wonderful for kids to see the instruments close up and to hear the way an instrument can tell a story with sound,” said one parent. “The instruments were very well integrated with the stories,” noted another. Each storytime features stories that will be enhanced by music from one of the four families of musical instruments: woodwinds, strings, brass, and percussion. The first storytime, hosted by Symphony percussionist Chris Perry on Feb. 7, will feature the percussion family musically illustrating several stories. On Feb. 14, Principal Trombone Aaron LaVere will host a Valentine’s Day-related storytime as he introduces kids to the brass family. The following week, on Feb. 21, flutist Martha Herby will present the instruments of the woodwind section, and the series concludes on Feb. 28 with bassist Don Hermanns presenting the instruments of Symphony’s string section.
Each player will choose music for his or her storytime session that illustrates the narrative of the story in an imaginative, compelling way. In addition, each musician from the orchestra will introduce themselves to the children when the storytelling is over, explain how their instrument “works,” demonstrate how to hold it, and help the children try out a real instrument brought to the session for them to use. Kids can then participate in a crafts activity in which they make their own instrument out of common household materials. For the percussion family, kids can make paper plate shakers (paper plates stabled together with beans in the middle); egg shakers (Easter eggs filled with rice, beans or beads) and coffee can drums. In lieu of actual brass instruments, kids can make paper horns and garden hose French horns, a roll of garden hose with baby bottle nipples for a mouthpiece. Woodwinds will be represented by pop bottle flutes and toilet paper roll kazoos, and the stringed instruments will feature shoe-box violins with rubber band strings. Kids and parents will also be given a specially printed bookmark with suggested readings and recommended CDs that features the instruments they have been studying. These recommendations tie into the library’s inventory of books and CDs.
The concept for the musical storytime grew out of the Symphony’s three-year participation in the Creative Empowerment Program, funded by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which explores ways in which people learn to open their minds to creative expression and the exploration of new ideas. The Creative Empowerment Program emphasizes the use of one’s own prior emotional experience in creating a “point of entry” to the study of a new subject, which has led to the creation of a new storytimes model for children that combines music with literature as a means of enhancing the learning process.
For more information call 503-228-4294 or visit the Symphony’s Web site at www.orsymphony.org.
