Sunday, December 5, 2010

First Concert Experiences

I don't remember how the subject originally came up, but Reagan has been wanting to attend an orchestra concert for a while now (I know it was what she was expecting when we saw the band at the football game at TTU earlier in the month and it had been a while before that that she had been talking about an orchestra - luckily the band was entertaining enough that we were able to avert a huge fall out when she discovered it was not an orchestra...). Anyway, on Friday, October 29, we had the opportunity to attend a free concert by the University of Kentucky student orchestra. I thought that would be a good place to start since if it was a disaster I wouldn't feel bad about leaving. The concert also featured a violin soloist which I thought Reagan would really enjoy.
~
Anna, Reagan and Aunt Arla ready to head out to Reagan's first orchestra concertAunt Dorothy and Heidi also joined us for the concert - Reagan was not interested in having her picture taken which is why she is not featured in the below photo - stinker!!!
Checking out a program
The girls thought the soloist was beautiful and loved watching and hearing her
Aunt Dorothy and Heidi decided to stay for the entire concert but we decided to leave at intermission since it was getting late, Grammy & Pop-A-Lops were coming into town, and we wanted to leave on a positive note. :) It was a really positive experience and I'm glad we had the opportunity to go!
~
Sweet cousins at intermission
When we got home from the concert Grammy and Pop-A-Lops were at the house already. Pop-A-Lops asked Reagan if she'd seen various instruments at the concert and she replied yes to everything he asked. Then he waved his arms around and asked if she'd seen someone doing that. She told him no, but she had seen a conductor with a baton. lol :) Silly Pop-A-Lops!!! lol :)
~
During the concert at UK, someone told Aunt Dorothy about a kid friendly concert series done by the Lexington Philharmonic. The PB&J series features different groups of musicians throughout the year who give performances while the kids get to fix and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches along with apple juice. After the mini concert the kids get to explore an instrument petting zoo (Reagan loved the instruments but was a bit dissapointed to discover there were no animals in this particular petting zoo). It turned out the next concert in the series was the following weekend (first weekend in November) so we joined Aunt Dorothy and Heidi for another concert experience. Grammy and Pop-A-Lops were up for the weekend for Reagan's first violin recital so they joined us as well. Because it sounded like so much fun and so kid friendly we decided to let Missy K try it out too. I'm glad Aunt Dorothy found this for us because it was a fantastic experience and one we plan to continue attending!
~
Missy K enjoying her PB&J sandwhich before the concert begins
Pop-A-Lops helping Reagan try out the French Horn (his specialty)
Pastor Jackson and his two oldest children apparently enjoy coming to the PB&J concert series as well
Heidi loved trying out all the instruments
Kennedy loved playing the harp and went back to it several times

I'm so glad to have great opportunities like this to share our love of music with the girls. It's so much fun to see them exploring and discovering how wonderful music can be. I can't wait for Jackson to be big enough to join us too! :)

No comments:

Post a Comment