EastView ~Creating a musical storm in Sault Ste Marie

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra Tour

One of the many in-school education events in September included the TSO Percussion Duo performing for students at East View Elementary School in Sault Ste Marie. Don Kuehn and John Rudolph are a great team and never fail to captivate their audience, whether they are aged 4 or 94! At today’s performance, the Junior Kindergarten students (age 4) arrived about 10 minutes early for the performance, which took place in the school’s gym. Don & John couldn’t resist giving them their own special little performance. First John showed the children the Japanese temple bowl, and each one of them had a chance to hit the bowl with the mallet to produce a beautiful ringing sound. Then Don shared the wooden frogs — which were a big hit (if you’ll pardon the pun). When you stroke the back of the frog with a wooden stick, it sounds like a frog croaking. The large, medium and small wooden frogs (which the children immediately referred to as the Daddy Frog, Mommy Frog and Baby Frog), were carefully passed down the line until each one of them had discovered the unique ‘voice” of each frog. And then Don led them in the creation of a rainstorm, starting with gently falling rain (rubbing your fingers together), which led to heavier rain (patting your thighs), thunder (stomping your feet), and lightening (clapping your arms overhead and yelling “KABOOM”!). And then the storm subsided and all of the actions were done in reverse. The children had a great time but — truthfully — I think Don and John had just as much fun.

Student Conductor in Wawa

Visit the TSO blog to find out more about their visit to Sault Ste. Marie!

One of my favourite moments on this Residency has to be when TSO Music Director Peter Oundjian invites a student from the 1,000 student hall to come up and conduct the Toronto Symphony Orchestra during a Student Concert.
TSO Student concerts are hour long orchestral performances, designed for young listeners. The audience in this morning’s concert at White Pines Secondary in Sault Ste Marie included students from as far away as Wawa and Elliot Lake. I heard from some teachers that students had been travelling since 6am to experience a TSO concert.
One Wawa student’s trip was made especially memorable when TSO Music Director Peter Oundjian invited Tamara to conduct the TSO in Offenbach’s “Can Can”. Peter gave the audience and Tamara a quick lesson in conducting and then she was off!
The orchestra followed her baton closely and changed tempo along with Tamara’s direction – here’s a clip of her grand finale (and TSO debut!)

Check out her performance on the Toronto Symphony Orchestra Blog

http://tsoontheroad.wordpress.com/.

Have a peek at their facebook photostream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/torontosymphonyorchestra/

Fun Fall Festival

Toronto Symphony Orchestra Northern Tour

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra had an amazing stay in Sault Ste. Marie recently as part of Sault Ste. Marie's Algoma Fall Festival program. Here is an excerpt from the TSO blog:

Right after the concerts in Sudbury, we jumped on the bus to Sault Ste Marie. We stopped at a rest stop along the way with a GREAT ice cream and fudge store – I think the most popular ice cream flavour was triple chocolate brownie, and it was yummy!
Upon our arrival in the Soo, we had an orchestra dinner where most of us ate until we couldn’t eat anymore! The Waterfront Inn even had a welcome sign for us:

Thursday morning was our first student concert in SSM, at the Kiwanis Community Theatre Centre. The kids loved the show – and were especially enthused about having Jim Gardiner as the soloist – born and raised in the Soo!
Thursday afternoon was hectic as Roberta had planned for many in-school performances and masterclasses. Lucky for us, we had some wonderful volunteers from SSM helping the staff to drive musicians to their schools. I went to Rosedale Public School with the brass trio – and the kids loved them! Here’s a picture of Andrew, Gabe, and Megan performing for the grade 7/8 classes:

Thursday night we were ready for our SOLD OUT show in SSM!. Christian Sharpe, Orchestra Personnel Administrator, and I were so excited about selling out the hall:

The show was fabulous and the audience was amazing! Jim Gardiner sounded awesome playing the Hummel Trumpet Concerto and the audience gave him a well deserved standing ovation. After two encores and a whole lot of clapping, we made our way to the Civic Centre for a nice reception put on by the Mayor.
All in all it’s been a great tour. As the last student concert wraps up, and we jump on our plane home, we’re all getting excited for an amazing season opener in Toronto! Special thanks to everyone on tour – the musicians, Peter, the staff, our presenters & supporters, all of the wonderful people we met in the communities we visited, and our super bus drivers Tony and Stan.

Getting on the plane!

A big thank you to Roberta Smith and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra members, as well as the Algoma Fall Festival , Festival Of Learning committee for organizing and providing this amazing opportunity for our students.