Trip to Birmingham Symphony Hall

6th February, 2012

On Sunday 5th February, Packwood’s Head of Music, Mrs Boutwood and Mrs Lee took a group of 20 children ranging from Form 6 to Form 1 to see a concert at the Birmingham Symphony Hall.

The performance which we had come to see was billed as a family concert created by Lemony Snicket, the author of the Series of Unfortunate Events. Some pupils had read the books, others hadn’t, and no one was quite sure what to expect.

The first half of the concert consisted of various questions to answer about musical instruments, interspersed with theme tunes (Pink Panther, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Scooby Doo) played vivaciously by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The question ‘Which instrument is the most difficult to play?’ resulted in virtuosic performances by a violinist, trumpeter, double bassoonist and drum player, each of whom gained support from at least one Packwood pupil who played that instrument: Gideon T and Alice S were particularly adamant that the trumpet was the hardest instrument and cheered accordingly. We were also given examples of hidden meanings and codes in music – Shostakovich, Purcell, Mozart, and Haydn’s ‘Surprise’ Symphony…which did its intended job and had everyone jumping out of their seats…

Then, after the interval, we were invited by a rather sinister-sounding narrator to solve the question on which section of the orchestra had murdered a dead composer. No instrument, including the conductor, was beyond suspicion, but all gave a sound alibi. As the narrator pointed out, a vast number of composers were indeed dead; and much of their music had been murdered by many instruments over the years.

All the children seemed to thoroughly enjoy what was, for most of them, their first public concert, as the comments below indicate:

Ali D – Mind-strikingly funny and entertaining

Amber G – Really entertaining to watch and fun for children

Isabel M – Lemony Snicket was really good because you learnt lots of things about the different instruments

Will T – Amazingly mind-blowing and really, really, really good to hear all the instruments