Three University musicians held an outreach concert last semester to open children up to the world of classical music.

Julie Singleton, Annaka Price and Wen Chin Liu planned, promoted and performed a children’s outreach concert at the Wood County Library as part of a graduate-level directed research course.

As part of MUSP 6900 ‘Directed Research,’ students have two options for their final project: put on an outreach concert or participate in a collegiate-level teaching interview, performing an educational skit at the Wood County Library.

Megan Ferguson, assistant professor of viola at the College of Musical Arts, taught the research course last fall. She said students are responsible for everything from booking a venue to advertising to programming for their concert.

Ferguson said she gives the students full rein on producing the project, but provides guidelines and lectures on how to give an outreach concert.

“The audience is a little different than it would be … at a recital at the College of Musical Arts,” she said. “For them it was children, so you have to program it so it’s appropriate for the audience.”

First-year graduate student Wen Chin Liu wrote and performed the vocal part of the program.

“[We] did it in the children’s section with the children’s castle … we made use of that,” she said. “Julie came out from the castle and started playing the French horn like an entrance of the king or queen.”

Daniel Trantham, 12, attended the program, and recalled his favorite part, the vocal part, which closed the concert.

“Wen Chin came and she did that one song about the alligator and the monkeys … and so the kids really enjoyed that,” he said. “It wasn’t very long, and then they did a little human train and went throughout the children’s area … it was pretty fun.”

Annaka Price, performance studies major, played clarinet for the children.

“It was cool to invite them into music making,” Price said. “They were running around the library and dancing and making motions.”

Liu said the goal of their performance was to introduce children to classical music.

“We wanted the children to know the instruments, because nowadays people [have] more pop influence, they don’t really know what is classical [music] anymore,” Liu said.

Singleton, performance studies major, said overall, the concert was a success.

“We wanted the kids to have fun but also be engaged … and to get a good impression of so-called classical music, and I think we did that,” Singleton said.

Each group member was attracted to the project for different reasons.

Liu, a choral conducting major, journeyed from her native Malaysia to further her studies at the University. She wishes to return home to work with children there.

“Before I came [to America] my initial goal was to go back and work with children’s choir in Malaysia and build up the children’s choir because choirs in Malaysia are not as advanced, but they’re coming along,” Liu said.

Julie Singleton, a first-year performance studies graduate student, has been playing the French horn since fifth grade, she said, and has been playing the piano for as long as she can remember.

She said she was drawn to the project idea for the opportunity to connect with children.

“I love kids … it feels very interactive,” she said. “Kids are really curious; it was really cute.”

Although working with children isn’t part of her career goals, Singleton said, the outreach program helped her gain a sense of how to appeal to different audiences.

“I think as a musician, you have to be really flexible with career goals, but I love to teach,” she said. “It’s like when you practice something … it helps to practice it different ways.”

First-year grad student Annaka Price said she’s been playing clarinet for 13 years. She said the program was a great success and well worth the two months they spent planning.

“We tried to see it from their perspective and put ourselves in the shoes of a 4-year-old … instead of saying this is what we love, we love music so we’re going to jam it down your throats,” Price said.

Planning and executing outreach programs are important for students to learn, Ferguson said. It’s important for students to reach out to the community to build a relationship with their audience.

“I wanted to impress upon them that people aren’t just going to hand you a career,” she said. “You need to be innovative and communicative.”

Career skills are incorporated into this directed research, she said.

“We have to be advocates for what we do as classical musicians, and part of that is building a relationship with the community,” Ferguson said.

Ferguson said there are two things students should take away from the course.

“[I] want them to come away with the administrative side how to put together a concert, all the nuts and bolts, and the artistic side, how do you communicate with a specific audience,” Ferguson said.

Singleton said music is an important thing for children to have exposure to. 

“It offers infinite possibilities to children … kids are so imaginative and so raw,” she said. “Kids can really experience a sense of awe that adults desensitize themselves to.”

Price said people of all ages can benefit from the power of music.

“Adults need that same thing … I think adults and students need to be engaged in the same way,” she said. “It’s the same objective in different means.”

Ferguson said musical outreach programs benefit all parties involved, not just the musicians.

“I really feel like [in] BG and Toledo … there’s a real need for this type of stuff right now, with the economy the way it is,” she said. “I think people need the arts more than ever right now.”

The concert was about more than just exposing kids to new music, Price said.

“It’s not about, ‘Oh support us, we need to get paid, arts are getting cut everywhere,'” she said. “It can’t be about that — it’s about breaking down barriers of stereotypes about classical music and communicating something in a different way.”