Explore the activities below with your child(ren) before arriving at Symphony Center–they’re perfect for your car or train ride downtown!

LISTEN before the concert, using our Spotify playlist. Access the playlist below or at this link. You can listen to the tracks freely, or you can explore the activities below for an enhanced listening experience.

*Note that a free account is required to use Spotify.

INSTRUMENT IDENTIFICATION

Your child will see many different instrument families at the concert today. Show him or her these pictures of each instrument family before you arrive. After finding your seats at the concert, ask your child if he or she can identify any of the instrument families!

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

Learn more about a guest soloist who will be performing at the concert!

Oliver Herbert, Cello
© Todd Rosenberg Photography 2015

Oliver Herbert, cello

• Oliver is 19 and from San Francisco
• He began playing the cello when he was 7 years old
• He believes that playing music is an act of courage: “Musicians aren’t able to ask essential questions to composers from the past, so it takes a lot of thought and introspection to perceive what the composer wanted to hear and to make the music come alive!”

QUICK COMPOSER FACTS

Richard Strauss

• Strauss composed his first piece of music at the age of six. He wrote many orchestral, chamber and solo works, but was most famous for his tone poems, which are single-movement pieces that describe a story or image.
• Strauss’ music was favored by Adolf Hitler in 1933. Though Strauss strongly disagreed with the Nazi party, he bravely cooperated them to save his Jewish daughter-in-law and grandchildren from the concentration camps. He was appointed president of Germany’s State Music Bureau and used his position to promote banned composers such as Debussy and Mahler.