The Paper's reporter Liao Yang
What is it like to spend the night in a museum?
On June 1st, Children's Day, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall came to a large audience. Under the baton of resident conductor Zhang Jiemin, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra joined hands with "Sister Swallow" Chen Yanhua to send a special Children's Day gift to the children with a multimedia orchestral music "Museum Fantastic Night".
On closer inspection, some children are not as tall as the minimum entry limit for the concert hall to be 1.2 meters. Originally, in order to meet the desire of more children to listen to concerts, Shangjiao took the initiative to reduce the height limit, as long as it is 1 meter, it can come to the scene to listen.
At the same time, in order to let more children receive "music gifts", Shangjiao once again opened the "two performances a night" performance mode - at 18:00 and 20:00, with "Swallow Sister" twice on stage. Two concerts sold out with 2,400 tickets.
Karen Leflak is a passionate philanthropist, children's book writer, composer and grandmother of four grandchildren, and her Night at the Museum is a children's book and an orchestral work for children.
"When the children were young, my husband and I used to take them to the American Museum of Natural History. Later, my sons also took their children to the museum and passed on their passion for learning about the world. Now that the museum allows visitors to spend the night inside, I think the story of spending the night in the museum on a treasure hunt can be the perfect vehicle to introduce the museum to children. This was the inspiration for Karen Leflak's Night at the Museum.
The story unfolds like this: the little boy Mason wants to spend the night in the museum to celebrate his birthday, and two friends with headlamps, maps and route lists, unlock all the way from the space museum, pass through the dinosaur museum, the African mammal hall, the mineral rock exhibition hall, the biodiversity exhibition hall, see the butterflies flying in the tropical rainforest, and finally end a magical exploration journey in the sea life museum.
After the success of Night at the Museum, Lefrack was invited to speak and recite in museums, bookstores and concert halls around the world. Her musical compositions premiered by the Miami Symphony Orchestra in February 2019, and in March of the same year, the New York Philharmonic performed at a family charity concert. This easy-to-understand, captivating and imaginative music has been well received by children, adults and musicians alike.
On June 1st Night this year, "Night of the Museum" came to Shanghai and opened with the narration of "Sister Swallow".
On stage, the musicians used the timbres of different instruments to subtly capture the characteristics of each child and each room in the museum. They used timpani drums to depict dinosaurs, cello to depict butterflies, and brass pipes to imitate the elephant's hiss, and when they raised their instruments to simulate the elephant's nose, the children in the audience laughed incessantly.
In the middle of each movement, "Sister Swallow" will be supplemented by recitation, through vivid language and expressions, describing the various anecdotes of Mason and his friends in the museum. The big screens all over the scene also cast colorful picture books. Explanations, picture books and music complement each other, which not only opens the imagination of the children, but also makes this wonderful journey of the museum night more accessible.
"I've only seen lions and tigers in zoos before, and I didn't expect them to be here too!" Listening to my mother, the uncles and aunts on the stage would imitate these small animals. "The 6-year-old Son Yue is from Baoshan, and his parents bought him a ticket at 8 p.m., but he couldn't hold back his excitement, and he came to the scene at 6 o'clock and waited obediently, which was also the first time he walked into the concert hall.
9-year-old Zhou Mo thought that the concert would be very boring, but he did not expect to see the whole time without blinking, listening to it with relish, "The story is very good, the violin can become an elephant nose, it is really magical!" The conductor sister is also very powerful, only with a baton, you can let everyone understand her meaning. ”
Not only did the children feel happy, but the adults on the scene were also healed. Many of them were fans of "Sister Swallow Storytelling", the warm voice of "Sister Swallow", and the beautiful and moving music of the live band took them back to their childhood and were soothed by the old times.
Editor-in-Charge: Chen Shihuai
Proofreader: Liu Wei