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.