Lucy Gellman Photo
Watching the last of the birds flap around the gymnasium and a few remaining animals with long ears take a seat, their lobes still hanging low, Laura Adam prepared to welcome another wonder of the animal kingdom to the Davis Street School. In her best impression of Ogden Nash, she read:
The swan can swim while sitting down!
For pure conceit he takes the crown.
He looks into the mirror over and over
And claims to have never heard of Pavlova.
At the piano, William Braun began to play, steadying himself ever so slightly for the bird’s swift arrival. Several children-cum-cygnets glided through the imaginary water around him. Christine Coyle joined in, drawing out deep, full-bellied notes on her cello that conjured a rippling lake, sun bouncing off its edges. Flutist Chelsea Knox swayed along, grinning as the velvety notes enveloped the three, who had been ricocheting among George Gershwin, François Shubert, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Camille Saint-Saëns for the past hour.
A trickle of footsteps and a few short shrieks of amusement came from the back of the gymnasium. Grace à Saint-Saëns, the swans had fully come to roost. Or something like that.
Saturday afternoon, over 250 young hens and roosters, elephants, kangaroos, cuckoos in the woods, and cygnets — with their parents in tow — braved the cold for the New Haven Symphony Orchestra’s Carnival of the Animals at Davis Street School in Westville, the latest installment of the NHSO’s free 2014 – 15 Family Concert Series, “The Family Goes to the Zoo!”
A Sunday encore in Shelton drew another 153.
The piece is a lesson in close listening, orchestral nuance, and youthful ebullience. Or at least that is what it has become. While “Le Carnival,” a 14-movement, 25-minute extravaganza intended to mimic animal noises with full symphonic sound, was written in 1886, Saint-Saëns was worried that its frivolous character would destroy his career, and it was never performed in his lifetime. In the years since — per Saint-Saëns will, it was not performed until 1922 — Nash wrote a set of amusing rhymes to accompany each piece (1949) and the collaboration, posthumous and unintended, has become one of the most popular works performed at children’s concerts since.
The NHSO doesn’t stop there, however. In celebrating the diversity of the animal kingdom, the organization is effectively also expanding the diversity of its constituent base at a time when it has become critical for the arts to do so. With initiatives in place like its 2015 artist residency, Family Concert Series, and Young People’s Concerts, the symphony is trying to establish a meaningful place in the musical landscape of New Haven’s youngest and teenage listeners.
“One thing that I think can be well intentioned but not really effective is these sort of ‘one off’ experiences … I think there does need to be a building, that you’re just constantly building on their experience.” said NHSO executive director Elaine Caroll in a recent interview with the Independent.
“I really encourage all attendees to get to know all of the people performing,” agreed Knox (pictured below).
What inspires her deeply, Knox added, is watching what young kids get out of hearing her play. She stays after concerts to show a few stragglers how a flute works or what high notes make the trill of a parrot. And it shows.
On Saturday, these cygnets, birdlings, kangaroo kids, and small fish didn’t care about what state budget cuts mean for the arts (grown-up alert: the Family Concerts likely won’t be free next year, so start writing your congresspeople now) or how keeping a cello in the trunk on a snowy night will affect the strings.
They just want to have some good old animal fun.
To learn more about community initiatives at the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, visit their website or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.
