Pioneering educational programming in Portugal, Orquestra do Norte has streamlined this experience over time, which occupies about 50% of its current activity. Past iterations of this program have offered somewhere between 70 and 90 performances to schools across northern Portugal. The goal is to promote education of the younger generations, harnessing the advantages of music regarding concentration, audition and abstract reasoning, as well as fine motor skills and rhythmic coordination. Each academic year, a whole season of discoveries waiting to be made, towards which the centers of learning contribute with making preparations in advance.
With proposals for both younger audiences and college students, via these pedagogic concerts, Orquestra do Norte establishes direct ties with their listeners, turning them into active participants in the experience (case in point, the “Concertos Sinfónicos Participados”, Participative Symphonic Concerts). In the upcoming season, the learning institutions may choose for the Orquestra to come to them within certain dates, or they may opt to attend open rehearsals, thus discovering the myriad timbres and the peculiarities of each work and its composer(s), in a different way.
The Orquestra’s proposals begin, with ears wide open, by the “Anatomy of the Orchestra”, proving that “Music also Travels”, “Music also Dances”, that there are 3 Bs that made history (Bach, Beethoven and Brahms) and that music changed cinema (“Compositions in the Dream Factory I and II”). In the “Participative Symphonic Concerts”, voice, movement and percussion turn listeners into interpreters. This year there is a premiere: concerts in which “Physics, Mathematics and Music” convey that everything is interconnected in the Universe of Sound.
When “The Orquestra goes to School”, there are programs conceived for necessarily smaller venues, with orchestral formations composed of strings, reeds, percussion and harp that will invoke markedly different worlds of sounds.
Within the works that will help demonstrate the instruments’ timbric colours, it is noteworthy to mention “Peter and the Wolf”, “The Nutcracker” and “The Four Seasons”. There are, however, others that illustrate the ways in which the instruments colour the music and connect to emotions - in order to understand, for instance, how the clarinet can be more intimitistic, the oboe keen, the cello expressive and the bassoon playful; and to know what timbre is, the volume, the rhythm - to fully seize the opportunity of an immediate contact with the Orquestra and, who knows, perhaps discover new talents and ways to contemplate the future.
To awaken the aesthetic sense and the love for music, actively contributing toward the child’s cognitive and social development are some of the pedagogic concerts’ objectives. Integrating music in educational programs is ever more important, since music has great influence over body control, expression, psychomotricity and cultivation of the voice and language, incentivizing creativity in children and teenagers.
The music room is a place for experiencing sensations, awakening perceptions and opening avenues of communication. The combination of these leads children to acquire competences and access another plane of understanding and expression. Since audition is of recognizable importance in the development of sensibility, one of the concerts’ objectives is to turn each pupil into an active receptor, endeavoring for each to participate in the listening of both specific musical fragments and complete works. In this fashion, the young listener may more easily learn to observe, analyze and appreciate the sonic reality in general and, particularly, the musical one.
The instruments’ timbre plays an important part in listening to a given work, since it helps to determine its character. Prior to the listening of an instrumental piece, pupils will learn the intervening instruments, through direct observation. Instruments are then presented sequentially according to families (strings, reed, brass and percussion) via a simple technical description, followed by the playing of a short passage, performed solo or by a group of musicians.
In a given musical work, different and varied factors come to the forefront: the epoch’s culture in which it was created, its creator’s environment, the composer’s own style, compositional structure, the voices or instruments that interpret it, etc. Regarding the composer, only the most determining biographical aspects are referenced, presented in a brief, agile and attractive manner, capturing the pupil’s attention. In such cases, composers’ portrait and respective life elements are employed, namely the place and country of birth. In all sessions both the author and the work itself is framed within the socio-cultural context of their time, outlining the music’s technical and aesthetic aspects.
Rhythm, melody, harmony, timbre and shape are Music’s basic elements utilized by the composer to create. Via directed listening, students are progressively sensitized to recognize these elements, enabling them to capture and compare, later on, the general distinguishing traits between different works from distinct periods and aesthetic currents.
Illustrating the aural experience with accompanying slideshows or videos is a resource employed in these concerts as an ancillary element of introduction to music, given the permanent power of attraction images exert over viewers. Projecting images related to the program at hand, in synchrony with thematic changes during the work, facilitates analysis and comprehension of each composition’s structure.
“A Fábrica da Música” is the generic title of a series of programs – composed by either selected excerpts or whole works – whose primary objective is the discovery and understanding of the Orchestra. Through specifically pieces, students will have the opportunity to know a symphonic formation from within and, in some cases, outright integrate it! In this fashion, each listener will uncover the Orchestra’s components, noting the duplicity of their nature, simultaneously simple yet complex – an adventure with several steps and proposals.
One begins by hearing some of the most widely known themes from the Seventh Art’s world. The objective is the acquaintance with the orchestra’s different instruments and their varied use within film scores, as well as to highlight the importance of orchestral music in Film.
This program’s objective is to promote the interaction between Musical Education students and the orchestra. Beyond than listening, there’s space for the attendees to actively participate. The chosen works’ scores include the audience, assigning them a vital role, not only in executing small choreographies, but also in percussion (corporal or instrumental) and vocals. Note: In preparation for such sessions previous classroom work is expected, with previously provided materials. Recommended age group: 9 to 12 years.
Peter and the Wolf is a children’s tale told through music. It was composed in the short span of 4 days by Sergei Prokofiev in 1936, with the pedagogic goal of showing the instruments’ sonorities to children. The story tells the way how Peter tricks the Wolf and saves his friends Duck, Bird and Cat. Each character (Peter, the Wolf, Grandfather, Bird, Duck, Cat and the Hunters) is represented by an instrument. Thus, Peter is represented by the string section, Bird by the flute; the clarinet gives voice to the Duck, the bassoon to Grandfather and the wicked Wolf is interpreted by the French horns. This program is conceived and staged by Jorge Castro Guedes, with the participation of actors Linda Rodrigues, Inah Santos and Mário Santos.
The Nutcracker is a piece from Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet, inspired by an excerpt from a tale by Hoffmann. The work develops around a Christmas night, where Jans Stahlbaum hosts a large party. The children, Clara and Fritz, wait anxiously. Clara’s godfather, Herr Drosselmeyer, is a toymaker. Upon his arrival, he entertains the guests with mechanical dancing toys. During gift exchange, Clara is bestowed by her godfather with a nutcracker wearing a soldier’s uniform. The party ends, everyone goes to sleep. Sometime later, Clara is attacked by legions of mice. Thence, the Nutcracker comes to life and faces the Mouse King, ending up fatally injured. Clara’s tears break the spell, transforming the doll into a prince, who invites the girl for a journey to the Land of Sweets. Upon her return, Clara awakens and retains her memory from that enchanted night. Program conceived and hosted by Jorge Castro Ribeiro.
Which season is children’s favorite? Spring? Summer? The answer will be given after listening to Vivaldi’s most famous composition: The Four Seasons. Premiered in 1723, this set of concerts for violin remains as one of Music History’s most popular. Each movement’s texture is varied, illustrating the respective season. For instance, “Winter” is dark and sable, whilst “Spring” exhibits sounds that invoke then birds’ chirper and the bees’ buzz.
Project “Ensaio Aberto” invites children to enter an orchestra’s backstage. In a rehearsal room’s informal setting, youths will be able to verify the effort required to concretize a concert. The composer’s particularities will be pointed out by the conductor and the musicians – highlighting themes, motifs, transitions, orchestration details, formal structures, details of style and interpretation – in order to provide the audience with a close vision of the creator’s world, his work and an orchestra’s experience.
In order to discover the orchestra’s frontmost instruments – and why they are so located – whose sonority goes from the violin’s lyricism to the cello’s telluric timbre. A family very seldom resisted by composers.
The most festive? The most powerful? Or are they also capable of growing delicate harmonies? From the warrior horns to the bassoon’s sweet sound, a world of wind instruments, divided into reeds and brass.
As ancient as the world of men, percussion makes audiences vibrate, with diverse and often surprising sonorities. An appeal not unnoticed by the younger, even when they are discovering music.
A source of multiple sounds, the harp has its own place in composition throughout Music History. Something only listening can explain, across this most antique instrument’s complex possibilities.
Fonte múltipla de sons, a harpa tem lugar próprio na composição ao longo da **História da Música**. Algo que só a audição pode explicar, nas complexas possibilidades deste antiquíssimo instrumento.
- selection of a contact element to ensure the connection between the school and Orquestra do Norte’s production team during the concert(s) organization.
Imagens dos vários eventos realizados.