As an educator, Daniel has spent a great deal of time teaching in classrooms of every grade level in the United States and Canada. This experience combined with creating and performing over 80 YPC concerts so far in his career, ensures that every program adheres to three guiding principles:
- Exposure to diverse quality literature of varied styles and time periods
- Developing active listening and critical thinking skills
- Creating cross-curricular connections with music and other disciplines
While each grade bracket lists four programs, new ones can easily be created to meet the needs of the students, teachers, and administrators in your community.
Grades K-3
A Musical Camping Trip
As we climb mountain passes, stroll through green valleys, cross large rivers, and meet a few animals as we learn about the various instruments of the orchestra and how they help create sounds found in nature. This concert features music by Beethoven, Smetana, and Wagner.
Dots and Lines
In this concert we will compare how composers uses dots (short sounds) and lines (long sounds) like a painter to write their music. This concert features famous paintings like Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night and Georges Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte paired with composers such as Beethoven, Walker, and Fauré.
Creating an Orchestral Fairy Tale
Every great story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Together with the orchestra, we will learn how composers write their stories just like authors do! We’ll explore settings, characters, conflict, and resolution and build our very own orchestral fairy tale. This concert features music by Smetana, Higdon, Rossini.
Adding Up the Orchestra
Together we will discover the three ways composers can musicians together to write their music. One by one, adding instrument families, and repetition. This show is a great way explore classical music and reinforce numeracy skill sets.This concert features music by Tchaikovksy, Ipolitov-Ivanov, and Rossini.
Grades 4-6
The Science of Sound
In this concert we will discover how sound works. Wether it be loud, quiet, high, or low this show uses a spectrogram in real time to track each of these elements of sound. This concert features music by Walker, Prokofiev, and Beethoven.
A Symphony of Planets
This concert take us on a symphonic journey to learn about the solar system and the orchestra. Each planet is paired with a piece of of classical music and descriptive poems created by students in your district. This concert features music by Strauss, Haydn, and selections from Holst’s The Planets.
The Morse Code of Music
SHORT – SHORT – SHORT – LONG! This program explores how composers write their music using rhythm (long and short sounds), just like Morse Code. We will explore various letters of the morse code alphabet and pair them with great orchestral music. This concert features music by Coleridge-Taylor, Tchaikovsky, and Beethoven.
Creating a Musical Poem
In this program we will explore how composers structure their music into different sections which we call form. This is the same process used to create much of the poetry we know today. We will pair a variety of musical forms with poetry. This concert features music by Higdon, Bizet, and Sibelius.
Grades 7-12
The DNA of Music
From rhythm and melody to the physics of sound, we identify the building blocks of music and use symphonic form to help create an entire movement of a symphony!This concert features music by Beethoven, Debussy, and Walker.
Music as Rhetoric
This show explores how composers used their music in a persuasive manner, sometimes create political subversion and sometime using it to save their lives. This concert features music by Mozart, Shostakovich, and Iranian composer Farhad Poupel.
The Symphonic Museum of Art
Take a stroll through the symphonies repertoire based on works of art and how each tells a story. This program features music by Ravel, Higdon, and excerpts from Mussorgsky’s famous Pictures at an Exhibition.
Sonic Architecture
Using a spectrogram in real time this concert discovers how architects and composers use a blueprint to create structures. This program features selections from Prokofiev’s Classic Symphony, Coleridge-Taylor’s Petite Suite, and Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.