Concerts for Young Children

Abstract

CONCERTS DESIGNED TO INTRODUCE young children to music and live performance are staged by a variety of organisations and ensembles across Australia. Shows featuring a wide range of performers are advertised for young children. Such concerts include Babies' Proms, Family Concerts by symphony orchestras, Play School Concerts, performances by children's music groups such as The Wiggles, and performances for children by youth orchestras and choirs. To be successful, these concerts must match the needs and interests of their audience of young children, engage their attention and offer the potential to expand their musical worlds. This paper documents the views of some musicians and early childhood practitioners about concerts for children aged from two to six years. Through interviews and observation of performances, some key principles for staging concerts for young children are proposed. Effective ways of incorporating concert experiences into the early childhood curriculum are also examined.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Andress

(1998). Music for young children. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace.

Bernstein

& Gottlieb

(2005). Young people's concerts. New York: Hal Leonard.

Burns

R. B.

(1997). Introduction to research methods (3rd edn). Melbourne: Addison Wesley, Longman.

Littleton

(2002). Music in the time of toddlers. Zero to Three, 23(1), 35–40.

Meyers

D.E.

(2005). Preparing performers and composers for effective educational work with children. Arts Education Policy Review 106(6), 33–38.

National Childcare Accreditation Council (2003). Quality Improvement and Accreditation System (QAIS) Validation report (2nd edn). Sydney: Commonwealth of Australia.

Oue

(1996). Giving kids a classical choice. Teaching Music, 4(1), 44–46.

Russell

J.A.

(2006). Building curriculum-based concerts: Tired of the same old approach to your ensemble's concert and festival schedules? Music Educators Journal, 92(3), 34.

Suthers

(1993). Introducing young children to live orchestral performance. Early Child Development and Care, 90, 55–64.

10.

Suthers

& Larkin

(1997). An examination of a young child's responses to performance: Implications for arts curricula. Journal of Australian Research in Early Childhood Education, 1, 115–122.

11.

Sydney Symphony Orchestra (1998). Symphonic encounters of the first kind. Symphony: The magazine of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, 1, 6.

12.

Thompson

(1996). How accessible are your concerts? Teaching Music, 4(5), 33–34.

13.

Thoms

(1994). Nurturing interest in young concert goers. Music Educators Journal, 38(4), 44–45.

14.

Young

& Glover

(1998). Music in the early years. London: Falmer.