Book Week Planning for Symphony of Stories Part 7: What's left?

Opera

Opera is a dramatic theatrical genre within Western classical music where a story is told entirely through singing and orchestral music. The words of an opera is called the libretto (from the Latin term for “book”; a musical theatre libretto is called the book of the musical.) The music for the opera would be called the score. Operas and musical theatre first and foremost tell a story, so they are very fitting for a theme such as 'symphony of stories'.

Operas such as the stories of Hansel and Gretel and The Magic Flute are easy places to start, but there are picture books for Turandot  and La Traviata as well. The Music Storybook series is beautifully illustrated by recognised children's book artists. This unique series presents famous operas, ballets and suites in a picture book form. Each book also includes six supplementary pages with background information about the composer and the musical piece.

Ballet

A book such as this, introduces children to the music that accompanies many famous ballets -Swan Lake, Giselle, The Nutcracker, Spartacus, and The Firebird.

And this too introduces the stories of seven ballets.

Biographies of musicians not previously mentioned 

Teresa Carreno (1853 - 1917)  a Venezuelan pianist, composer, soprano, and conductor. 

Ethel Smyth (1858 - 1944) English composer and suffragette. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works, choral works and operas.

Elizabeth Cotten (1893 - 1987) an influential American folk and blues musician.

Marian Anderson (1897 - 1993) an American contralto who performed a wide range of music including opera.

George Gershwin (1898 - 1937) American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned jazz, popular and classical music. Famous for Rhapsody in Blue and folk opera Porgy and Bess.

Viola Smith (1912 - 2020) American drummer. She was one of the first professional female drummers.

Ishtak Perlman (1945 -  )  an Israeli-American violinist.

 

Pete Seeger (1919 -2014)  American folk singer, songwriter, musician and civil-rights activist. His best-known songs include “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”, “If I Had a Hammer” and “Turn, Turn, Turn.”

Elton John (1947 -   ) British singer and pianist.

 

Yo Yo Ma (1955 -   ) American celloist

Troy (Trombone Shorty) Andrews. (1986 -  ) Trombone Shorty, is an American musician, most notably a trombone player, from New Orleans.

Recycled Orchestra of Cateura is a famous Paraguayan musical group made up of children from a slum built atop a massive landfill in Asunción. They play classical and popular music on instruments crafted entirely from scavenged trash. 

1st June World Reef Awareness Day

World Reef Awareness Day is on 1st June.  It is a call to action for everyone  to reflect on the fragile ecosystem of our ocean's coral reefs and  to generate active change by education and engagement.

Coral reefs are living communities of colonial organisms made of individual polyps that excrete a bone-like skeleton. This skeleton forms large rock-like structures that are homes for thousands of organisms. The reef ecosystem is a significant life support system for plankton to algae to the enormous sea creatures. 

Tomorrow I will put together a table display of coral reef books for the students to borrow.

Book Week Planning for Symphony of Stories Part 6: It doesn't have to be a symphony! Jazz

The Story Of Music
By James Carter & Valerio Vidali

It hums and it thrums
through day and night
the magical, mystical
rhythm of life!

This wonderful book introduces all sorts of music. (See it on Youtube)

Orchestras, choirs all kinds of bands 

journeyed around across the lands.

Jazz to country, samba to swing 

many new styles, new songs to sing. 

So here's some books that look at other kinds of music.

Jazz

 

• This Jazz Man by Karen Ehrhardt & R.G. Roth

This swinging make-over of “This Old Man” introduces the roles of nine jazz legends amid gorgeous illustrations and plenty of onomatopoeia.
(See it on Youtube)

And there are so many picture book biographies about famous jazz musicians and singers.

Duke Ellington 1899 - 1974 pianist

Louis Armstrong 1901 - 1971 trumpeter

Josephine Baker 1906 -1975 

Mary Lou Williams 1910 - 1981 pianist

Django Reinhardt 1910 - 1953 guitarist

Billie Halliday 1915 - 1954 jazz singer 

Dizzy Gillespie 1917 - 1993 trumpeter

Ella Fitzgerald 1917 - 1996 jazz singer

Charlie Parker 1920 - 1955 saxophonist

Oscar Peterson 1925 - 2007 pianist

John Coltrane 1926 - 1967 saxaphonist

Miles Davis 1926 - 1991 trumpeter

Melba Liston 1926 - 1999 trombonist

Nina Simone 1933 - 2003 pianist, singer

I am sure I have missed some, but this is a good start. Need another entry for other music and biographies.