At Ocean View Elementary School in Albany last month, a gym full of students had a chance to hear a woodwind quintet made up of players from the larger ensemble One Found Sound. It was part of KDFC’s Playground Pop-Up series (although a threat of rain brought the music inside), which brings informal performances to where the kids are.
There’s more information about the ensemble at the One Found Sound website.
“I was lucky enough to hear performances like this in elementary school, junior high and high school, and those are the reasons that I ended up becoming a musician, and also got into theater, and choir, and all sorts of performance in the arts,” oboist Jesse Barrett says. “I got to see a woodwind quintet in high school, I got to see an opera singer and acting troupes, improv groups in elementary school, that’s the reason that I ended up doing this, so that’s what we’re hoping we get to do – is create another generation, or at least usher in more children to… if not play instruments themselves, get interested in the arts and music and performance of any kind.” Sarah Bonomo plays clarinet in One Found Sound, and says young audiences tend to not hold anything back in letting you know how they feel. “I just love the way kids react to the instruments, I think it’s so visceral and raw, you know, when the bassoon honks out a low note and the kids just lose their minds about it. It’s the best feeling as a musician, actually, to see people just having that real, guttural reaction to what you’re doing.” And tapping into those real feelings is something flutist Sasha Launer says kids can do best. “We want to get away from that stuffy feeling of feeling like you can’t clap when you want to, you can’t move when you want to, you can’t experience the music the way that you want to. So it’s so exciting for us to be able to access these kids when they’re so young, and teach them hopefully that Classical Music isn’t something that you have to zip up for, and sit quietly. That you can get involved in it and react to it in a way that feels right to you.”
