Events Archive
Pops Concert – “Murder, Mayhem and Mystery”
Oct
“Murder, Mayhem and Mystery” featuring The Composer is Dead
Thursday @ 7:30pm, July 24
Here’s a question that has gnawed at the minds of musical artists and institutions for generations: How do you introduce kids, let alone their parents, to the joys of classical music? The Composer is Dead is a murder mystery/whodunit designed to do just that with enough humor to hook the grownups too! If you’ve ever heard an orchestra play, then you know that the musicians are most certainly guilty of something. Where exactly were the violins on the night in question? Is the horn section protesting a bit to boisterously? Did anyone see the harp?
Stookey’s The Composer is Dead is similar to Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,(performed beautifully by our own orchestra just this past Festival) in it’s intention to introduce young audiences to the instruments in the orchestra.
This sinister guide to the orchestra was commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony and premiered in 2006. The work has since been performed by over 100 orchestras on four continents and is one of the five most performed classical works of the 21st century worldwide.
(YouTube has several versions for a sneak preview of this piece).
Our murderous Festival Orchestra will perform the piece under the fiendish direction of Jason Klein for the 2014 Pop Concert. Just to keep it “all in the family”, James Paul will narrate!
The Festival wants to facilitate attendance to this playful concert by offering 400 Family Tickets that entitle one adult and one child entrance for $20. Contact the OCMA office for Family Ticket information, 541-267-0938.
The Festival is raffling a signed copy of
The Composer is Dead by Lemony Snicket.
Drawing for the winner will be at the POPS Concert July 24th.
Tickets are $1 each and can be purchased online, Festival office, or any Festival events.