What We Do for Young Audiences

NRE comes to spend time with young musicians in collaborative, explorative, interactive workshops and concerts focused on helping the next generation find freedom to make original music. NRE offers workshops, assembly programs, performances and master classes for one-day visits or multi-day residencies. 

Performances:

Buster Keaton Short Films with Live Music

In the days of silent film, audiences watched movies while listening to live music. This popular program presents short comedies by Buster Keaton accompanied by live music. The film scores are original compositions by NRE pianist/composer Brendan Cooney.  The music follows Keaton through 1920's landscapes with a soundscape of American roots music combining blues, jazz, ragtime, old-time, Klezmer, and even a little classical music! This program is always a hit with audiences of all ages. Through this program audiences get to experience what it was like to see a movie a century ago at the dawn of film. 

Concert for Kids 

NRE presents an engaging concert of music for young audiences. The repertoire features creative arrangements of pieces by Claude Debussy, Darius Milhaud, and Camille Saint-Saens, American folk music, as well as original music composed by NRE.

Workshops:

Music and Film 

(For any age group, in large assemblies or classrooms).

This flexible workshop or assembly program combines performance and audience discussion to explore the ways that music and film interact to create narrative structure and meaning. Short film clips are screened several times, each time accompanied by different live music. Audience and performers discuss the way the different musical interpretations affect the way we understand the film.

Composing (and playing!) Film Scores                                     (For instrumental groups with some degree of fluency with notation.)

In this workshop participants collectively compose a score to a short film clip. This is an exciting project which draws on a wide variety of skills from reading to improvisation. Guaranteed to keep participants on their toes!

Book 1                                                                                         (K-12)

This performative, interactive workshop disassembles and re-imagines iconic pieces from the young music student's repertoire. Students are invited to participate with their instruments, exploring ways to creatively alter/develop their musicianship within the beginning repertoire.  Each piece becomes a lesson in a different musical concept: harmony, orchestration, texture, meter, swing, harmony, reharmonization, mode, form (fugue, sonata form), etc. Since each piece addresses a different concept this program is flexible and can be adjusted to various ages and blocks of time.

Anatomy of a Piece of Music 

(For 6th through 12 Grade Music Classes)

This workshop explores the structure and thematic material of one movement of a larger work (say a movement of the Brahms clarinet trio). Through discussion, diagram and listening the NRE takes a class into the inner mechanisms of the piece.

Musician Master Classes                                                  (Elementary, Middle School, High School, College)

The New River Ensemble offers Master Classes in piano technique, cello performance, woodwind performance, jazz improvisation, composition, and choral and instrumental ensemble playing.