“Musique” Saves The Day

When Anna Osinaike woke up to see large, swirling snowflakes outside her window Saturday morning, she had a moment of calm. This — the first snow of the new year, crisp and still bright white — would be the perfect reason for a quiet day.

But then she remembered: She and her 4‑year-old daughter Kristen had a date to travel halfway around the world, and be back in New Haven by 3 p.m. Despite the winter weather, they couldn’t be late.

That travel opportunity — which managed to hit five countries while never actually going beyond snowy Westville — came courtesy of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra (NHSO), which presented the first installment of its 2017 Winter Family Concert Series Saturday afternoon at the Davis Street Arts and Academics School.

Around 40 families turned out for the free concert. An encore performance in Shelton drew 330 people.

Intended to both educate and entertain, the family concerts aren’t new. But they are constantly evolving, with the nonprofit taking suggestions from audience members after each performance. Previous years’ performances have included animals friendly and ferocious; this year’s is focusing on an interactive global perspective, with music’s role as the great human connector.

“It’s a chance to explore different cultures,” said NHSO Director Elaine Carroll, motioning to the orchestra’s newest small patron as she spoke. ​“Music is a wonderful way — you don’t have to speak a foreign language. It’s something you can communicate in across cultures.”

Saturday, that trip started and ended in the Davis Street School gymnasium, transformed into a magical, globally fluent stage set with a little help from the Alliance Children’s Theater actors and the NHSO Woodwind Quintet. Leaving Westville, audience members were transported to Washington, D.C., where scatterbrained anthropologist Dr. Beat (George McTyre) had misplaced several of his prized objects before a conference at which he was to present them. For a moment, he despaired. There was no way he could get to Israel, Russia, Haiti, and China by that evening, and his presentation would be ruined.

Or would it? No sooner had pint-sized attendees like Kristen Osinaike gasped small, suspense-filled gasps than Beat’s assistant Allegra (Cheri Brooks) remembered that Beat’s plane, Musique, could be powered by live music alone.

And so they, with a room full of listeners and young actors (Nina, Shelagh, and Gia Laverty) eager to help Beat collect his items, departed on an international odyssey that included hora dancing to Mike Curtis’s ​“A Klezmer Wedding,” calypso lessons with Thomas Graf’s ​“Yellow Bird,” bird’s eye shots of Moscow, and a final storytelling stop in China, where Tikki Tikki Tembo-no Sa Rembo-chari Bari Ruchi-pip Peri Pembo had fallen down a deep well while playing on its edge.

The goal? In the short term, to save Tikki Tikki Tembo, and get back to D.C. in time for Beat’s conference presentation. But also to teach, through jubilant musical expression, the values of global understanding, world history, and cultural preservation. While there were some questionable steps along the way — Haiti wasn’t ​“settled” by the French any more than Christopher Columbus ​“discovered” America, and Arlene Mosel’s 1968 Tikki Tikki Tembo is a little bit of an affront to the vibrancy and depth of Chinese culture — children left with wide, newly opened eyes, adding stamps to their brand new ​“Musical Passports” as they filed out of the gymnasium, and toward a table filled with free books from New Haven Reads. 

Zipping Kristen’s coat at the end of the concert, Osinaike said that message had resonated with her. 

“To me, it opens your eyes and your child’s eyes to new things,” she said ​“You get out, you dance, you hear new music. It’s awesome.”