Students get insider's view of symphony

A piccolo trilled. Timpani thundered. Bows sawed across violin strings in a silly rendering of pre-musical noise.

And, time and again, 840 children and their teachers exploded with applause.

It was all part of the Glacier Symphony and Chorale's ongoing outreach and educational program, presented as a special concert for children from across the Flathead on Friday morning.

Students from Eureka to Seeley Lake, West Glacier to Marion and most points in between made for a standing-room-only crowd at the Flathead High School auditorium as conductor John Zoltek presented a bit of symphonic education and a lot of musical enjoyment.

They called it the Thrill Youth Concert, in honor of the President's weekend symphony concerts' premier piece, "The Thrill of the Orchestra."

As a special treat, composer Russell Peck was on stage to narrate the musical journey through the inner workings of an orchestra.

"They're energetic," Maya Franchi said. The Hedges School sixth-grader plays alto saxophone and was one of the lucky ones to sit on stage with music teachers as the teachers played in the symphony. "My favorite instrument was the oboe. It was kind of jazzy."

Franchi is one of Sarah Hok's band students; she and others sat in between chairs and on the stage wings.

"It was like having back-stage passes," Franchi said.

"You can see them better," classmate and flute-player Alicia Markham said.

"And you get to hear them better," classmate and violinist Shontae Sullivan added.

Whether tucked away onstage or in the audience, the experience was a thrill for hundreds of students in fifth and sixth grades, and in junior and senior high band and orchestra.

Friday's concert started with selections from "Lord of the Rings," and included Peck's "The Thrill of the Orchestra" and "Freedom Fanfare."

Zoltek showed his passion for educating a new generation in the ways of symphonic music by targeting his introduction and explanation of each piece to his audience. He talked of motifs that introduced hobbits, told of Peck's rich musical background and urged them to listen for a patriotic theme in "Fanfare."

"Wow, that's fun," Zoltek turned to the children after a "Lord of the Rings" movement. "Pretty nice music, wouldn't you say?"

"Yeah!" they roared back.

Then it was time to start "The Thrill of the Orchestra."

"This is going to be a riot. This is going to be a blast," Zoltek said. "Mr. Russell Peck is going to guide us through this symphonic landscape."

With that, Peck threw all his energy and youthful enthusiasm into showcasing each of the four parts of the orchestra - percussion, brass, woodwinds and strings.

Each, in turn, showed off and acted up.

Percussionists had no trouble making noise. Brass players removed their mouthpieces and blew through them, sounding not unlike "girls and boys being crude or even rude," Peck pointed out. The woodwinds' reeds were a bit more polite, and the plucked strings showed the meaning of pizzicato.

"Is it fun playing the cellos?" one child asked in a question-answer session afterward.

"Do you see everyone smiling up here?" Zoltek replied.

"Is it hard to remember all the parts they have to play?" another asked.

"Yes," he answered, it is hard to do what they do and it takes a lot of practice. But that said, "they have the music in front of them."

At the end of Friday's program, each group of students whose teachers played in the symphony trooped up on stage for photographs. They mingled with the players and embraced the excitement of the performance.

"It was cool," Marion School student Jessie Williams said. "It was the bomb."

Glacier Symphony and Chorale will present one more youth concert on May 13, rounding out the season of three such events. Another may be scheduled just for high school students on April 8. Gwyn Palchak coordinated plans for Friday's performance. For information, contact Marti Kurth at 862-3608.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com