Peter and the Wolf

Graham has had a fascination with music since he was very little. He could sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” at 15 months old (although, strangely, he does not know the song now) and we have a great recording of him playing Grandma’s piano in Jaffrey and singing “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star” on Mother’s Day 2004 (he was 18 months old). We tried Kindermusic which went well the first time, but the second time he was with a group of kids who had not been in care outside of the home and had a hard time socializing with other kids. Of course, you probably know about the request to Santa last Christmas for a ukulele.

On Sunday, we went to see the New Hampshire Philharmonic perform Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. The program included Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, 1st Movement (Spring) and a short Mozart piece. The story of Peter was told by local radio personality Laura Knoy, a mother of two boys about Graham’s age. Chuck knows her from his days at the Concord YMCA where she taught aerobic classes!

Graham was quite surprised at the sound that that many instruments made. I think when he saw the number of musicians, he thought it would be really loud, but it was pleasant. The clapping was the worst in his view! Following the performance, some of musicians made themselves available for the children to look at and, in some cases, play the instruments. He was disappointed that there was no tuba, but when he got to play the bass drum and the timpani, I think he got over it. He also helped play the violin (regular and child-sized), cello and trombone.