A Closer Listen
How best to encourage young musicians? One might teach them how to play the classics, or even provide them with a modern score (I recently heard middle schoolers playing the theme from The Avengers at a park festival). Even better, one might co-compose with them, and in so doing find their exuberance. This is what ten U.K. composers have done on Many Voices: Ensemble, writing music with and for 8-10 year olds, to be played by musicians grades 2-6. The results – played by the Kaleidoscope Music Ensemble, are playful and fun, sporting such kid-friendly titles as “What’s for dinner?” and “Lullaby and Waddle for Puffin.” The score will be published digitally by Composers Edition so that all can have access.
As one might expect, the album is a joy to listen to. The biggest astonishment is that the pieces are playable, but not simple, conveying a maturity beyond their years. The chimes that lead off Tom Coult’s “Abide” ease musicians gently into the music, which continues with staccato strings but then adds longer, more sensitive draws of the bow. James MacMillan’s “Rout” offers the triumphant tinge of a sports blowout, balanced by the subtlety of triangle and woodblock. Aileen Sweeney’s “The Corryvrecken Whirlpool” starts softly, then breaks into a sea shanty-esque stomp, clap and chant, something one can imagine younger people enjoying (although older folks will also like this surprising shift!). There’s even a section where the ship goes down, a short silence followed by a return to the beginning, a pairing of emotions that lends the track an even deeper appeal. Smart sequencing places Jasmin Kent Rodgmin’s “how to be an ocean” next, punctuated by children’s chants of “Yeah!” The ocean appears relatively placid, but the fun to be had there is contagious.
When Abel Selaocoe’s “Ditoro Kaofela” adds handclaps and shaker to Sesotho language singing, and then adds bird whistles (in this case likely made by humans), one starts to wonder why more adult music isn’t like this. The answer is simple: when we grow up, we forget how to be children, and we need young people to remind us. Rūta Vitkauskaitė’s “The Storm,” a children’s story with ensemble, is like a middle schooler’s version of a podcast, the sudden exaltation “I’ve got a giant hippopotamus!” the highlight of the piece, although the raucous storm section of the composition comes close. The title of “Hello, hello? Can you hear me?” sounds like a line from an old Verizon commercial, and Roderick Williams captures the playfulness of the exchange, which might have been otherwise had not Thomas Edison suggested “Hello” instead of “Ahoy, ahoy” as a greeting.
In like fashion, the very title of Tom Poster’s “Lullaby and Waddle for Puffin” prompts listeners to picture the puffin, alternately waking and waddling along a rocky shore. The piano captures the action in cartoon fashion, while the strings attempt to calm the waddler, a tug-of-war suggesting a parent attempting to lull a child to sleep. “Stars” is the collection’s most reflective piece, as Sonia Allori transposes the feeling of looking up at the twinkling night sky. Finally Blasio Kavuma asks, “What’s for dinner?” the question arriving at the end of the set, as if the middle schoolers are quite done with rehearsal and very hungry. The best part of the piece is not the traditional instruments but the use of a cutting board as percussion. We suspect that dinner involves carrots. To this the children respond, “We want fish and chips!”
We recommend this album to all audiences, but especially to parents and teachers alike whose passion is to instill a love of music in children. Be sure to inform grade schoolers that other grade schoolers helped to write this music; they may then be inspired to write and play music of their own. (Richard Allen)
NMC Recordings
Wed Oct 25 00:01:57 GMT 2023