Five members of the Louisville Orchestra perform "Peter and the Wolf" to children at the Mary Wood Weldon Memorial Library. Photo by Michael Crimmins/Glasgow News 1
By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
Members from the Louisville Orchestra stopped by the Mary Weldon Memorial Library on Wednesday to show and explain their instruments to children and to perform “Peter and the Wolf,” a popular children’s musical composition where the narrator tells a children’s story with musical accompaniment.
The story, originally written by Sergei Prokofiev, has five main characters, Peter, his grandfather, a bird, a duck, and a wolf. Each of the characters is represented by a musical instrument, in this case there was an oboe, a clarinet, a flute, a bassoon and a french horn that each musician played as their respective character acted in the story.
Kelly Bowles, youth services manager at the library, said the orchestra was able to offer this performance, and performances all over the commonwealth, through a grant provided by the state legislature.
“The Louisville Orchestra contacted me, they said they had received a grant to do free performances for public libraries in the state of Kentucky,” Bowles said. “So they are coming to us free. We don’t charge our audience [and] they don’t charge us.”
Bowles said about 20 kids had pre-registered to attend the event. The children made shakers from beans, rice and balled up aluminum foil while the quintet set up their instruments, which they got to use during the story.
Bowles said this was a great opportunity for the children to see and hear live music. She said, not only is music more fun and engaging for the children, but it also helps their learning experience.
“This is such a special performance because the Louisville Orchestra provides such a vital part of arts and culture for the state of Kentucky and for us to be able to host a story time [for] our children with professional musicians…is amazing,” Bowles said. “Children’s brains work and learn in such different ways, and when you can put music to words, to a story, that triggers more areas of the brain and they will learn even more.”
Jennifer Potochnic, who played the oboe in the quintet, said she is grateful that the commonwealth has given them this grant to tour communities across Kentucky.
“It’s part of our job to bring people joy through our music,” Potochnic said. “It might change their lives in some way…to hear actually live music.”
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