Magical Movie Music + Ripple's

Last week I sat down at the computer and started looking at all of the performances in my area, at the various colleges and community theaters within an easy distance.  I found some that I'd like to take Ben or one or other of the kids to, or maybe all of us, but a series of concerts at BYU immediately got my attention: free, kid-centered performances on Saturday mornings.  What?!?  The first one that I found was last weekend and it was so great.  (And, yes, I am bothered by the fact that this series has been going on for 5 years and I'm just now finding out about it.)

Since the concert was free and we weren't sure how popular it would be, we arrived early.  Actually, we arrived before they opened the doors.  But that meant we got great seats.

I'd brought a few things to keep the kids busy since I knew we'd be waiting in our seats after getting there early, but the programs had lots of games that were entertaining enough that I didn't have to use anything from my bag of tricks.

The concert was called "Magical Movie Music" with the BYU Philharmonic playing several soundtrack pieces from movies kids were familiar with, and a few new ones.  The program included Darth Vader's Theme and the Main Theme from Star Wars, Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter, William Tell from The Lone Ranger, Hoedown from Rodeo (not sure if this was in a movie, but I know it's been in commercials), and an excerpt from the score of King Kong.

The Star Wars music was entertaining and exciting enough for the kids that the orchestra just played it.  But for every other piece, there was an interactive component: tapping or moving your finger according to different themes within a piece, demonstrated by a narrator with an overhead projector; watching a scene from King Kong first without the music, then with the music, etc.  The narrator also talked about the various composers too.  It was very cool.

Celeste, as heard at the beginning of "Hedwig's Theme."

When the concert was over, kids were invited to come up on stage for a "musical petting zoo," and try out the different instruments.  Cat and Luke weren't interested, but Jack and Eliza loved it!

It was a small moment of sweet justice for me when Eliza did NOT want to stop playing the Steinway, and the percussionist we'd seen running from instrument to instrument during the concert told us that he had a piano background.  In other words, piano rules.

I'll let you imagine how loudly Eliza hit this gong.

I'm glad this violinist let Eliza try her violin - something she's been wanting to do for a while!
But I don't know that I would have been that trusting with all those kids around!

Then we got a (very little) lunch/snack at Ripple's, a place we've been wanting to try for years.  We forgot that the restaurant is cash-only so we just got some burgers and shakes to share - enough to know that it would be okay to return and get more burgers another day when we have more cash on hand.

This little drive-in burger place was the main location for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints video "The Phone Call"- I included the video below.  It's one of our favorites!  Released in 1977, it's full of funny scenes and lines that we had fun reenacting and quoting while we were there.