The Greenville Symphony Orchestra is marking 75 years of its Annual Children’s Concert with a free program at Peace Concert Hall on Nov. 20, and organizers expect nearly 3,300 students and families to pack the two performances. Tickets for the 10 a.m. show are already gone, leaving the noon performance as the remaining option for schools and families hoping to attend.
The milestone concert, themed “Practice Makes Perfect!,” continues a tradition that has run in Greenville since 1951, according to Greenville Journal. This year’s theme is meant to get students thinking about what preparation and effort can help them accomplish, the paper reports. Attendance for the two shows combined is expected to draw students from 18 schools, according to Who’s On The Move.
What’s on the Program
The concert opens with Carlos Simon’s Fate Now Conquers, a piece inspired by Beethoven’s notebooks and his Seventh Symphony, per the same account from Who’s On The Move. From there, the program moves into excerpts from Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, featuring violinist Nathan Amaral, Greenville Journal reports. Amaral, described by the orchestra as Brazilian, also performs the same Beethoven concerto in a separate Greenville Symphony program, according to the Greenville Symphony Orchestra.
Johann Strauss Sr.’s Radetzky March rounds out part of the set, reinforcing a lesson about returning melodies and inviting audience participation, per the Who’s On The Move report. The program also includes Jerod Tate’s Spider Brings Fire, according to the orchestra’s own event listing.
Practice, On and Off the Stage
A companion education video built around the concert’s theme features Symphony musicians alongside former Greenville Drive catcher Hudson White and Greenville Triumph player Lucas Meek, demonstrating how practice shapes performance in sports as well as music, per the Who’s On The Move account. Jessica Satava, executive director of the Greenville Symphony, said the concert gives children a lasting experience, according to Greenville Journal.
The concert is free for public school classes, homeschool families and co-ops, with priority given to Greenville County public schools, and registration is required, Who’s On The Move reports. The orchestra says it offers more than 100 free events annually serving 25,000 people across South Carolina’s Upstate, according to the Greenville Symphony Orchestra, and that small ensembles visit all 52 elementary schools in Greenville County.
A Year-End Push Tied to the Concert
Beyond the concert hall, the orchestra is in the middle of a year-end giving campaign aiming to raise $75,000 by Dec. 31, the Journal reports. The campaign supports the orchestra’s music education and community engagement programs, with the Annual Children’s Concert cited as one example of the work that funding sustains, per the same report.
