The Young Persons's Guide to the Orchesta

In the organizer's words:

The "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" by English composer Benjamin Britten is an ideal first excursion into the vast and fascinating world of orchestral sound. Britten's idea of introducing young people to the sound of a symphony orchestra is realized in an entertaining and playful way in this concert. Britten chooses a dance-like movement from Henry Purcell's play "Abdelazer" as the theme. With such a catchy theme, it was easy for Britten to explain the instrument groups and the character of each instrument to the young people. This is done in the course of the variations with admirable systematicity - from the presentation of the theme in the various orchestral groups at the beginning to the crowning fugue at the end. The work is one of the composer's best-known pieces and is - together with Saint-Saëns' "The Carnival of the Animals" and Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" - one of the three most frequently used pieces in music education.

The concert will be read and presented by television presenter Ralph Caspers, who will be well known to young audiences from "Sendung mit der Maus" and "Wissen macht Ah!" and to slightly older television viewers as the presenter of "WDR Quarks". The Bergische Symphoniker, the orchestra of the cities of Remscheid and Solingen, will perform under the direction of their chief conductor Daniel Huppert.