We have enjoyed several Young Explorers concerts over the past year or so. The Young Explorers concerts at the Royal Northern College of Music, are family-friendly, ‘relaxed’ performances that are specially designed to keep kids engaged and amused.
These concerts are a brilliant way to introduce children to live classical music and my three have thoroughly enjoyed them all. We’ve seen a range of the Young Explorers concerts ranging from Mother Goose, The Showstoppers and Hocus Pocus.
Last weekend my family and I were invited to the latest Young Explorers concert, Pictures at an Exhibition. Before the concert, children are invited to passport control to get their passport stamped. At your first concert, your children will receive a passport which can be stamped each time you attend one of the concerts. Once 6 stamps are collected you’ll receive a certificate and a free family ticket to another event!
We took our seats and conducted Tom Newall come onto stage to introduce the Piccadilly Symphony Orchestra. Like with the other Young Explorer concerts we’ve seen, Tom starts by asking the children which instruments they know and can see on stage. My three enjoy this part and find it really interesting, especially Joshua who is now learning the trumpet.
Tom then introduced artist James Mayhew who was to tell the story along side the music. In this concert we listened to the music of Modest Mussorsky. He wrote a piece of music based on the art of his friend artist Viktor Hartman.
As we are taken on a journey through music, following the stories, James Mayhew painted beautiful pictures live on stage and represented what we were listening too. The kids were very impressed and completely in awe of how fast he painted the pictures, he certainly had a talent!
We saw paintings of The Gnome, an Old Castle and children playing in Paris, a cart being pulled by an Ox, chicks running whilst they tried to hatch from their shells, creepy skulls and spiders and finally the Great Gate of Kiev.
After the concert the pictures were given out at random and unfortunately we didn’t manage to win one. Then the children are invited down onto the stage to meet some of the orchestra. In the past, Joshua has headed straight to the drums in order to have a little go, but this time he enjoyed speaking to the principle trumpet player telling him all about his own lessons.
I never had to worry about my children getting bored or messing at these events. They are about 1 hour long and full of entertainment that keeps my children’s attention. I have a 7 year old and 3 year old twins.
Keep up to date with upcoming shows by downloading the current brochure.
Out and about mummy 