HOW INSTRUMENTS WORK AND HOW THEY MAKE THEIR SOUNDS

How Instruments Work and How They Make Their Sounds, was the theme of today's student led JUMP! concert. Students from Dodson Elementary School, and Key and St. Stephen's Middle Schools were introduced to a variety of instruments, including double bass, violin, piano, trumpet, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn.

Students performing percussion instruments

Graduate student Sonja Thoms led the program. After being shown how wind instruments work, listeners heard a woodwind quintet perform the Barn Dance from Berio's Opus Zoo. Several audience members had a chance to accompany a song on a variety of percussion instruments. Music from the Trio for Violin, Trumpet and Piano by Eric Ewazen helped to show how instruments from diverse musical families can make music together. Double bassist Jory Herman concluded the program with a performance of John Deak's B.B. Wolf, in which he and his bass used many different sounds to tell the story of the Big Bad Wolf.

Janet Rarick, an artist teacher in wind ensembles, is one of the Shepherd School faculty members who help oversee this outreach program. She explains that the program grew out of a discussion by the wind chamber ensemble in fall 1998. Several students suggested using outreach as a way to increase performance opportunities and potentially increase audience size at regularly scheduled wind chamber music concerts. Leone Buyse, professor of flute and chamber music, subsequently created an independent study program for students who wished to connect with the Houston community by coordinating outreach concerts. Her husband, Michael Webster, an associate professor of clarinet and ensembles, also plays an active role in overseeing and encouraging outreach participation.

Rarick observes that a major benefit of the program is the great satisfaction that comes from reaching out to others. "We have found that our concerts are a great way to get children exposed to a college campus at an early age. Who knows what dreams may come from these experiences? If even one or two children can be inspired to go to college, it will be worth it."

All concerts are free of charge, but by reservation only. All six inreach concerts are scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on Thursday afternoons. Concerts are scheduled for mid-February, late March and mid-April 2005. Music to Look At is recommended for grades K-4 and will explore how music can be used to describe characters in stories. The Creatures in Room 642 is recommended for grades 5-8 and is a work by Frank Proto scored for narrator, trumpet, double bass and percussion.