Crawling concerts
The SMPV Thurgau has been organizing concerts for the little ones and their parents since February. Each of these concerts is dedicated to a specific style: jazz in February, baroque in March, contemporary music in April and romanticism in May.
I talk to Jakob Valentin Herzog, who organized the series together with Sarah Bächi, Barbara Hidber and Wolfgang Pailer and who played in the March concert, about his first experiences with the new format.
Marianne Wälchli: What motivated you to organize toddler concerts?
Jakob Valentin Herzog: We know the situation as parents in which a visit to a concert always involves considerable effort. A babysitter has to be found and everything has to be organized. Or if you go to a concert with a small child, you can never be sure that you will be able to stay until the end. So the idea was to make a low-threshold concert visit possible. Ideally, this can also be the impetus for parents to take part in cultural life again, regardless of children's performances. In addition, the Thurgau section is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its founding, which encouraged us to try something new and bigger.
In the first concert you were in the audience with your little daughter, in the second concert you played yourself. What did you experience?
First comes an armada of baby carriages. Then a cheerful, colorful hustle and bustle begins. At the beginning of the concert it is very quiet, but then the noise level rises continuously until the end of the concert. The freshness with which children and parents experience the concert is wonderful. Fortunately, the awe and caution that we know from classical concerts are far away.
It requires a lot of concentration from the musicians, but the children's reactions are very immediate and direct. The gratitude of the children and parents is enormously rewarding, and the best gift is when you later receive compliments on the concert from unknown listeners on the street.
Why did you program a different style for each of the first four concerts?
This has resulted from the composition of the board. Sarah Bächi is a jazz/pop musician, Barbara Hidber studied composition as well as the violin, Wolfgang Pailer came up with the idea of the romantic accordion concerto, and I myself am trained as a baroque cellist. This diversity offers people who don't normally attend concerts a welcome change. And it can arouse the curiosity of an experienced concert audience for unfamiliar styles.
Do you have the impression that the little ones react differently to different styles of music?
Not really. Of course, they react more strongly if they already know an Andrew Bond song jazzed up, but Corelli's Follia also had a rousing effect. More interesting here are the reactions of the different age groups. While children under the age of 2 to 3 tend to simply watch, the older ones are more active - the wow effect wears off more quickly.
What type of room is suitable for such concerts; how many people can it work with?
A large, bright room with a carpeted floor. Very reverberant rooms are unsuitable - there is always a certain level of noise.
The ZKO (Zurich Chamber Orchestra) offers such concerts on a much larger scale - of course in concert halls that are built in such a way that the stage sound is amplified. Where this is not the case, 80 people is certainly a maximum
Is it just about the little ones experiencing classical music and their parents being able to attend concerts with them, or are there already music education activities at the concerts?
Thanks to the different ideas of the participants, a variety of forms were created. For example, the children were encouraged to dance along with scarves in the first concert, while we designed the second as a "normal" concert. The upcoming concert with contemporary compositions, on the other hand, will again be very interactive. The pure concert form is perhaps not quite ideal for a heterogeneous audience, as we have in Thurgau
Can you describe the reactions of the large and small audiences in general?
They are very diverse! From children who just watch, to children who start dancing, who crawl on instruments or who are more interested in their friends than in the music. Some parents encourage their children to move, others enjoy simply being able to enjoy the music in peace. For some of the adults, it is obviously their first ever visit to a concert, and the reactions have been very positive across the board.
Are you planning to continue the series and what would you like to change after your first experiences?
As far as I'm concerned, definitely, but a Board resolution on this is still pending.
For example, my wife and I would like to integrate pictures - she is a wonderful painter and is already working on her first sketches. Sarah Bächi suggests perhaps making the "afterwards" even more sociable so that you can get to know other families. But the most important thing is that you are convinced of what you are performing - children are incredibly sensitive.
