At the New Haven Symphony Orchestra’s next family concerts, some members of the audience—born decades after groups the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin first arrived on the scene—may be hearing music by those bands and others for the first time, though in a slightly different context. “What if Mozart Played Guitar Hero?” on January 21 and 22 at the Omni New Haven Hotel and at Shelton Intermediate School will feature an NHSO string quartet performing what the orchestra describes as “classic rock music as it may have been played in the Viennese Court.” Among the pieces on the program will be “Eleanor Rigby,” “Smoke on the Water,” and “Stairway to Heaven,” as well as Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik and Overture to The Marriage of Figaro. A half-hour before each concert, the NHSO’s Instrument Discovery Zone will offer students the chance to try out different orchestral instruments. Remaining concerts in the NHSO’s family series this year include “From Haydn to Hip-Hop,” exploring the relationship between music and dance; and “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel,” an introduction to woodwind instruments told through the classic children’s story, with music composed and narrated by Yale University Music Professor Thomas C. Duffy.
Posted January 5, 2012
