The Music in the Mountains family concert and picnic has a long, imaginative, entertainment tradition. This year’s entry may top the rest.
First, the outdoor picnic welcomes families with a hot dog supper in the patio of the Fort Lewis College Art Building. Then, it’s a short walk to the Community Concert Hall where you will hear the Festival Orchestra perform two works designed for children and their families. What’s new will be Guillermo Figueroa, festival music director and conductor, as narrator. In the past, MitM has invited other speakers to narrate: MitM Board President Gordon Thomas or MitM Conservatory Director Matt Albert.
If you go
WHAT: Music in the Mountains Dinner and Family Concert.
WHEN: 5:30 p.m. dinner, 6:30 p.m. concert, July 21.
WHERE: Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College, 1000 Rim Drive.
TICKETS: $5.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.musicinthemountains.com or call 385-6820.
Figueroa will host and lead the orchestra in two stellar works for young audiences: the famous 18th-century “Toy Symphony,” presumed to be composed by Leopold Mozart, and a remarkable contemporary suite titled “Tyrannosaurus Sue, A Cretaceous Concerto,” by American composer Bruce Adolphe.
The “Toy Symphony” is just that – a tiny, 9-minute symphony in three movements with the voices of a few toy instruments – pan pipes, ratchets, drums, a triangle and, if we’re lucky, a toy trumpet. The work is short, playful and a perfect introduction to “Tyrannosaurus Sue.”
If you come from Chicago, you probably know that one of the largest, most complete and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons is in the Field Museum.
Discovered in 1990 by paleontologist Sue Hendrickson and her dog on a hike in South Dakota’s Cheyenne River Reservation, the massive find quickly ignited world attention. A decadelong custody battle ensued. Chicago’s Natural History Museum won with an $8.4 million bid.
Negotiations and curatorial matters took a decade to settle, and it took time and community involvement to choose a nickname. “Sue” won as a tribute to her discoverer. Even though the sex of a T-rex cannot be determined by fossilized remains, Sue became her name, and it stuck.
She’s a very big girl: 42 feet long from nose to tail, about 13 feet high, and it’s estimated she weighed about 9 tons. Her largest tooth is a foot long.
Because dinosaurs, like trees, can be dated by ring patterns in bones, Sue’s remains suggest she died in old age, 28 years in T-rex terms. Life expectancy seems to have been around 30 years. The bones also tell of several calamities, all of which you can discover on the Field Museum’s website and YouTube entries.
American marketing and civic pride have promoted Sue’s story from a media blitz to banners, plush toys, special exhibits, story books and even a concerto.
In 2000, the Chicago Chamber Musicians performed Bruce Adolphe’s concerto for festivities opening the Tyrannosaurus rex exhibition. The concerto has seven sections, musically telling the story of Sue’s life from birth to death. Infancy, adolescence, the tumultuous teenage years when Sue competes for food with other prehistoric creatures, and finally old age and death. The scheme parallels human development, and composer Adolphe crafted a narration to briefly outline each life phase.
Sue’s persona is voiced by the trombone, and in the three competitive sections the clarinet, bassoon and French horn voice the antagonists. In Section Six, Sue dies and the composer quietly alludes to the age of extinction. Yes, it’s a dramatic tone poem with shadows. Not to worry, the composer finds a way to instill hope for the future.
Section Seven, The Dawning of a New World, centers on the miraculous age of human beings, bringing us all to our era of expanding possibilities. The finale is both poignant and hopeful.
Adolphe has also composed many original works for family audiences with interactive elements. Unlike other works that introduce children to the voices of a symphony orchestra, Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” or Camille Saint-Seán’s “Carnival of the Animals,” Adolphe’s Crustaceous Concerto tells a life story with an emphasis on growing up and facing life’s difficulties. This more contemporary framework is one reason the work has had considerable success all over the country.
Inspired by Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts, Adolphe has created many different programs and hosts them at Lincoln Center where he is resident lecturer and director of Family Programs. You can watch an excellent YouTube “Tyrannosaurus Sue” online: https://chambermusicsociety.org/watch-and-listen. Adolphe narrates, and Lincoln Center’s Chamber Players perform.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
