Making the most of Family and Youth Concerts
Bob Good • 21 April 2025
Heroes, Animals, Stories, it's child's play
I hope this will help you engage and inspire your younger audiences - the future of our industry - with ideas of how to make the most of my short and accessible works for full orchestra. All these ideas have been used in performances of my most popular works.
Take "The Animal Suite", for example; useful for highlighting Climate Change, Resilience, Bio-Diversity and so on:-
- If you're one of the ambitious youth orchestras performing this work, have a member of the orchestra introduce each movement.
- Engage the little ones by getting them to dress up as their favourite animal, and award a prize for the best costume.
- Get your audience to join in with kazoos/mirlitons at the end of the last movement (sounds like a recipe for disaster to me!).
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for demo audio
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for the score
For "Olivia, The Witch And The Christmas Tree", two great ideas that came out of last season's performances:-
- Have the narration performed by a local celebrity.
- Have the narration performed in your local dialect. The broader the better!
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for demo audio
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for the score
And with "Silver", my first Sinfonietta written for younger audiences, every
performance I've been told about has used the first movement "Serenata" to open the concert. Whether performed as a one-movement, two-movement or three-movement work, it's always
opened the whole concert. That should tell you something! So if you're looking for a good concert opener, I may have just found you one. In one performance I was lucky enough to attend, members of the (youth) orchestra talked to the audience about the work in between the movements. That was appreciated, and also took it away from the otherwise "stuffy" feeling that young audiences get from the silence we adults love in between the movements.
Click Here
for demo audio
Click Here
for the score
And finally, a note on programming. My "The Three Musketeers" is suitable for all manner of themes including Literature, Heroes, France, Comradeship, Fighting for Justice, Allies, The French Revolution and more!
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for demo audio
Click Here
for the score
With a new take on why we decorate trees at Christmas time, "Olivia, The Witch And The Christmas Tree" tells the story of a young girl (the daughter of a poor woodcutter) who ventures too far into the forest one Christmas Eve and meets a witch.
My "Andante For Three Cellos" has been chosen for performance at the 2022 International Composers Festival in Sussex, UK.
New album of upbeat retro instrumentals to add warm feelings of optimism to leisure content, light entertainment and light news.
A new album of piano and string recordings is available for licensing from Boom!
A new album of String Quartet recordings is available for licensing from Roba
