January 2018 Music
Dear Parents,
We are just finishing up our music unit on music composers. This is always one of my favorite units of study because it is so thrilling to hear and see the reactions of the children to the music! The famous historical composers we studied were Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Giuseppe Verdi, and Giacomo Puccini. I selected these four composers out of all the many possible choices because I have four finger puppets that I use to help the children identify with them. They often end up feeling as though they really know them.
The selections from Mozart include Papageno’s (the bird man) aria from the opera the Magic Flute, Mozart’s children’s symphony and their favorite, A Little Night Music. The Beethoven selections were The Moonlight Sonata, and excerpts from Symphony 5, 7 and 9. The Verdi selections were The Triumphal March from the opera Aida and Russell Watson singing La Donna E Mobile from the opera Rigoletto.
I always like to finish this unit with living composers and especially to select composers, if known, from some of their favorite songs. This years composers include Peter Yarrow, who wrote Puff the Magic Dragon, Tom Paxton, who wrote The Marvelous Toy and Goin’ to the Zoo and John Williams who wrote Liberty Fanfare for he rededication of the Statue of Liberty, and Star Wars. I probably don’t need to tell you that Star Wars was the hands down favorite of this section!
I will be on vacation for the next couple of weeks but when I return we will begin our lessons on the instrument families. We are again working to bring in professional instrumentalists from The Colorado Music Festival and Center for Musical Arts. The preschool and older children will be having the opportunity to touch and play a variety of instruments. This is always a very exciting event.
I love hearing from you. If you have any questions or comments please let me know.
Ms Kathleen