Starkville-Mississippi State University Symphony Association

Promoting the Performing Arts is a Day One partnership with Dr. Joe Ray Underwood, who is a member of the Starkville-Mississippi Symphony Association’s Programs for Children. The primary event is the “Programs for Children,” November 16, 2018, which will be held in Lee Hall on campus. The Programs for Children will feature live symphonic music, art images about patriotism, projected images of winning student art activities and narration. Musical repertory would be chosen from the following works: Summon the Heroes-John Williams, American Civil War Fantasy-Jerry Bilik, Three Patriotic Sing-Along Songs [America the Beautiful, When Johnny Comes Marching Home, and This Land is Your Land]-arr. Brown, Duke Ellington Highlights-arr. Custer. Additional music, Overture to Candide-Leonard Bernstein, and An American in Paris-George Gershwin, will be included in the longer evening concert for adults. The connection of music and learning will be through social studies and art. Students’ K-classrooms will be offered the opportunity to participate in an art contest. Teachers will assist their children in creating a patriotic mural for their classroom. Patriotic symbols, slogans, mottos, and images will be used to create a tableau about the children’s appreciation of patriotism. During the concert on November 16, 2018, images of winning murals will be projected onto a screen above the symphony along with images of local and national patriots/heroes. Children also will assist the symphonic orchestra by singing along with patriotic songs arranged by Dr. Kopetz. Our Day One team will promote this event by traveling to several elementary schools to prepare children in grades K-5 for the concert. We will teach about the concept of patriotism, sing patriotic songs, and draw patriotic images that students may use in their art contest. We also will explain what instruments are in the symphony, and instruct children how to act when they attend the concerts. Other events that our team may promote are The Association’s art contest, the Symphony Chorus program, and Jazz concert.