In Friday’s (11/15) Ottawa Citizen (Canada), Peter Robb interviews Paul Pement, executive and artistic director of Classical Kids Music Education. “It started in Toronto, where Susan Hammond created a classical music audio series for kids,” says Pement. “She started by writing ‘Mr. Bach comes to Call,’ as a way to pull a child listener into the world of the composer. They’re being exposed to classical music when they envision themselves in the story; then they are educated by the material—almost as a secondary result. I started an organization about 11 years ago that takes those audio stories and adapts them to the stage…. There are two actors—one is a child character … and the other actor plays the adult roles.… There are theatrical elements; costumes and lighting, and some set props, and then [for our next performance] there is the full NAC Orchestra on the stage. I like to think of the orchestra as the main character.… So many arts are being cut in the schools that a lot of the time our programming becomes the education. We play a lot of schools that are underserved by government. And we hope … that they’ll be inspired by this music, and that it leads to a love of music, and inspires them to personal excellence.”
Posted November 15, 2013
