Stella is one brave little girl. She’s about to embark on the journey of her young lifetime — a ride across America in a hot air balloon.
Don’t worry, she’s not in any danger because this is a musical adventure, one that will help hundreds of kids learn to listen to music in a whole new way.
Stella is the brainchild of Boise Philharmonic music director Robert Franz, who will conduct a Family Series concert “Stella’s Musical Tour of America” Saturday, with narration by former astronaut Barbara Morgan.
The story and the music work in tandem to illustrate ways of listening to music using their imagination.
As Stella floats over the Mississippi River, she hears “The Moldau” by Smetana — which the philharmonic will play — with its trilling, rippling opening that suggests a rushing river.
Stella hears a full orchestra playing incredible pieces of music as she floats over the Rocky Mountains, Pacific Ocean and Grand Canyon, each with its musical complement.
Franz has been doing his Children’s Concert “Musical Tour of America” for about 20 years. But now that he’s invented Stella, it’s more than a concert.
Franz has written a children’s story that he hopes will become a book filled with buttons you can push to hear the full symphonic music.
The birth of his niece Stella in 2008 helped inspire the project.
“I imagined her growing up with a set of books on her shelf with the name Stella on them, written by her Uncle Bobby,” he says.
Though Franz doesn’t consider himself a writer, he saw it as an opportunity to build on his experience of bringing classical music to life for young audiences.
“This has been for me an incredible journey,” Franz says. “It was kind of an ‘a-ha’ moment when I realized I could take what I’m doing now and turn it into something else that has a whole other life.”
Franz created his educational programs to match school curriculum, which includes a focus on geography. He has learned that by matching the musical side to what kids are already learning, it takes it to another level.
“I started looking at oceans, mountains, rivers and the Grand Canyon,” he says. “Then it was pretty easy to come up with music to describe these things. What was really important to me was to not just say, ‘This is a river and here’s some river music,’ but to help kids listen to classical music in a different way.”
To develop his story, Franz worked with several Valley elementary schools. He read the story to kids at White Pine and Endeavor in Nampa. They gave him feedback that he used to tweak it.
“It turned out that the kids relate to Stella as if she’s an actual person,” Franz says. “And it’s amazing what she hears. Kids hear music in their head, but it’s not anywhere near as cool as what Stella hears.”
He also asked students at Christine Donnell School of the Arts and Pioneer School of the Arts in Meridian to draw pictures inspired by Stella’s journey.
Franz chose 75 of them to be projected over the orchestra during the performance.
At the end of the concert, Franz and the philharmonic will bring it all together with the first movement of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World.”
It’s a pastiche of sounds and influences Czech composer Dvorak experienced on his tour of America in 1893.
“What I asked them to do is to listen to the horns,” he says. “They go up and down, kind of like the shape of a mountain. Or I’ll have them listen to some of the accompaniment, which goes ‘doey-ooey-ooey’ in the middle. It has the shape of the river music. So I have them listen to the music in a visual way.”
This is the first book in a planned series.
Once he gets a publisher interested, he want to develop his other children’s concerts into more of “Stella’s Musical Adventures.” Stella will climb Mount Denali in Alaska to learn about stratus, altostratus and cirrus clouds related to high, middle and low pitch, and Stella will ride the space shuttle and tour the solar system with excerpts from Holst’s “The Planets.”
