Tulsa families got a chance to experience a children's picture book come alive through a full orchestra Saturday, as Signature Symphony presented Dan Brown's Wild Symphony at 2 p.m. at the VanTrease Performing Arts Center at Tulsa Community College. The production paired live orchestral music with narration and projected illustrations, built around a story designed to introduce kids and first-time concertgoers to classical music.
The performance was scheduled for Saturday afternoon at the VanTrease PACE, located at 10300 E. 81st St. in Tulsa, according to News On 6. The station reported the show combines live orchestral music, narration and projected illustrations to bring the Dan Brown picture book to life on stage, with News On 6's own LeAnne Taylor serving as narrator for the Tulsa performance.
Wild Symphony follows Maestro Mouse as he gathers an assortment of animals to put on a concert, with the story built around 21 separate musical portraits, each animal getting its own musical theme meant to reflect its unique personality, according to seed facts from the original report. The structure echoes Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf as a classic introduction to orchestral music for kids, and a 2020 look at the project from Planet Hugill noted the work draws inspiration from both Peter and the Wolf and Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals.
Who Wrote It, and Why
Dan Brown, far better known for thrillers like The Da Vinci Code, wrote Wild Symphony specifically to share his love of music with children, per the original seed reporting. On the project's official site, Brown explains the creative choice behind the book's structure directly: “For each of the animals in the story, I composed a unique piece of modern classical music,” according to Wild Symphony. The book itself uses image recognition technology so that scanning each page “magically” triggers the specific musical piece tied to that animal, the same source notes.
Signature Symphony's artistic director, Scott Seaton, described the Wild Symphony concert as a family-friendly and accessible event, distinct from the ensemble's regular season programming, per the seed facts behind this report. That framing lines up with how News On 6 characterized the show: designed for families and audiences of all ages, including those experiencing a symphony for the first time.
Tickets and Running Time
Adult tickets ranged from $10 to $20 depending on seating, the station reported. Families could also buy one adult ticket and receive a child ticket free using promo code BOGO, while additional children's tickets cost $5 each, and kids age 3 and younger could attend at no cost. Student tickets, including those for homeschool students, were also priced at $5.
Accounts of the show's length differ. TulsaKids reported the performance would run about 45 to 50 minutes, while News On 6 put the total runtime closer to an hour, including roughly 36 minutes of music, with organizers saying there would be no intermission. Either way, the format was built with shorter attention spans and newcomers to the concert hall in mind, pairing the orchestra's playing with projected visuals and spoken narration rather than a traditional, unbroken classical program.
