3rd Grade Orchestra Field Trip

This morning, our 3rd graders went on a field trip to the Wheaton College to see a Children's Concert performed by the Wheaton College Symphony Orchestra. This was a great way to wrap up our unit on the instruments of the orchestra and our instrument investigations! Students were all on the lookout for the instruments they've been researching!

The concert featured the instruments of the symphony orchestra, conducted by Dan Sommerville, and was hosted by magician Michael Folker, who helped illustrate through magic the colors of the orchestra.

We learned about how different instruments and families can portray different emotions through the colors of their sounds, about how composers use major and minor tonalities to affect the way we feel when we listen to music, and how rhythm gives life to music.

Here is a list of the pieces we heard (click on the blue links to hear/view)...

     Sabre Dance (by Aram Khachaturian)

     Opening theme of Thus Sprach Zarathustra (by Richard Strauss)

     Storm movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 (Pastorale)

     March Militaire (by Franz Schubert)

     Violin Concerto in G minor (third movement), Op. 12, No. 1 (by Vivaldi)

     Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (by Johann Sebastian Bach, as orchestrated by Stokowski)

     (Toccata and Fugue in D Minor was originally composed and performed on the organ- click here to see an organ performance.)

     Variations on America (by Charles Ives)

Waiting for the concert to start!

Conductor Daniel Sommerville and the Wheaton College Symphony Orchestra

Magician Michael Falker

"Variations on America"