School Concerts

Experience The Philadelphia Orchestra for only $8 a person!

Announcing Dates for the 2013-14 Season!

For Students, Grades 2-8

Introduce your students to the thrilling and powerful art form of orchestral music with a Philadelphia Orchestra School Concert. Held on weekdays, these 45-minute full orchestra performances are open to school groups and home schools throughout the greater Delaware Valley area. In the 2013-14 season, The Philadelphia Orchestra presents an original program designed to entertain, inspire, and educate, written by award-winning storyteller Charlotte Blake Alston. School Concerts have been commended by the Pennsylvania Department of Education as a model program in alignment with the state’s Standards Aligned System.

Musical Storytelling: Create Your Own Adventure

Storytelling exists not only in literary forms but also through means of musical expression. In this interactive program, students direct the action by designing their own concert experience and choosing what music is performed and how the story is told. They’ll use elements of a story—like setting, conflict, and resolution—to create an adventure while exploring key categories of orchestral music designed to communicate stories, such as program music, soundtracks, and music written for ballet and opera.

Students become the hero as the program’s host leads them through several choices, asking them to vote on which storyline to take and which music will be performed. The audience is in the driver’s seat, and no two performances will be alike! Concerts will be created from the music listed below, which means not all works will be performed in their entirety. However, all pieces are included in the supplemental curriculum guide.

2013-14 Philadelphia Orchestra School Concerts
All performances are 45 minutes long and take place in Verizon Hall at The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

Hosted by Charlotte Blake Alston Tuesday, February 4, 2014, at 12:15 PM Tuesday, February 11, 2014, at 10:30 AM and 12:15 PM Storyteller

Read Charlotte Blake Alston's Biography

Charlotte Blake Alston is a nationally acclaimed storyteller, narrator, instrumentalist, and singer who performs in venues throughout North America and abroad, breathing life into traditional and contemporary stories from African and African-American oral and cultural traditions. She has made multiple appearances at the Smithsonian Institution, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, the National Storytelling Festival, and the National Festival of Black Storytelling. In September 2010 she was the sole American invited to perform at the Cape Clear Island Storytelling Festival in Ireland.

Ms. Alston is the host of Sound All Around, The Philadelphia Orchestra’s concert series for preschool children, and has appeared as host or narrator on the Orchestra’s Family and School Concerts since 1991. She has also been a featured host, storyteller, and narrator on the Carnegie Hall Family and School Concert series since 1995. Ms. Alston has worked with the Opera Company of Philadelphia (now Opera Philadelphia), Singing City Choir, and has appeared as a narrator for several other orchestras around the country, including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, and the Indianapolis Symphony. Her latest libretto, The Children’s March, commissioned by Singing City Choir for the 2013 Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, premiered on April 26, 2013.

In recognition of her work, Ms. Alston has received numerous honors including a prestigious Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s “Artist of the Year” award, which recognizes individual artists for their excellence. She holds two honorary Ph.D.’s and received the Circle of Excellence Award from the National Storytelling Association. In 2009 Ms. Alston was named recipient of the Zora Neale Hurston Award, the highest award bestowed by the National Association of Black Storytellers.

Hosted by Michael Boudewyns Wednesday, February, 26, 2014, at 10:30 AM and 12:15 PM Tuesday, March 4, 2014, at 10:30 AM and 12:15 PM Actor

Read Michael Boudewyns' Biography

Michael Boudewyns loves performing with The Philadelphia Orchestra. He made his Orchestra debut in 2000, and since 2004 he has been a frequent guest artist with The Philadelphia Orchestra’s popular Family Concerts and Beyond the Score presentations. This season Mr. Boudewyns is excited to debut two new performances: ’Twas the Night before Christmas (December 2013) and The Remarkable Farkle McBride (February 2014).

Mr. Boudewyns regularly performs family concerts with other orchestras across North America, including Winnipeg, Des Moines, Milwaukee, Charlotte, Richmond, Princeton, Illinois, Annapolis, Lincoln, New Haven, Richmond, Harrisburg, Kennett, Newark, Tulane University, the University of Delaware, and the Westchester Philharmonic. He is excited for several upcoming orchestra debuts: the Singapore Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Victoria Symphony in British Columbia, and the Richardson Symphony.

In the 2013-14 season Mr. Boudewyns presents Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham, with soprano Kimberly Schroeder (the Kansas City Symphony, Delaware Theatre Company, the Texarkana Symphony, the Victoria Symphony); Peter and the Wolf (the National Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Richardson Symphony, Symphony in C); The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant (the Singapore Symphony, Delaware Theatre Company, James Madison University); Carnival of the Animals (Symphony in C); Tubby the Tuba (the Victoria Symphony); and Mozart’s Toy Symphony (the Kansas City Symphony, the Texarkana Symphony, James Madison University). Mr. Boudewyns is a graduate of the Professional Theatre Training Program at the University of Delaware and is co-founder of www.ReallyInventiveStuff.com.

Reserve Your Seats!

Through the support of generous sponsors and donors, the Orchestra is able to offer tickets at a reasonable cost of $8 per person. Pick a School Concert date that works best for your schedule and take advantage of our comprehensive resources at no additional fee to prepare your students for an experience they’ll never forget!

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Get the Most from Your School Concert
Enhance your classroom preparation for the School Concert by viewing the tabs to the left of this page, which include information about the accompanying School Concert curriculum guide, teacher workshops, our Orchestra docent program, and additional teacher resources.

Field Trip Grants and Funding

Take advantage of the various opportunities available to help fund your school’s trip to The Philadelphia Orchestra.

The Philadelphia Orchestra is pleased to recognize the following major donors who support the School Concert Program.

School Concerts are funded in part by the Julius and Ray Charlestein Foundation in memory of Morton and Malvina Charlestein, the Connelly Foundation, the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation, the Christian Humann Foundation, the Billy Joel Fund for Music Education, the Rosenlund Family Foundation, the Volunteer Committees for The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Wells Fargo Foundation, and the Zisman Family Foundation.

Supporting sponsorship for School Concerts is provided by

The Wells Fargo Foundation is proud to be the Lead Underwriter for the “Raising the Invisible Curtain” initiative.