Kids’ concert an outpouring of collective love for music
This is the second in a series of three articles by Tania Miller, who retires this spring after 14 seasons as music director of the Victoria Symphony. In the series, Miller reflects on memorable aspects of her tenure here. Next weekend, the Victoria Symphony will create one of the biggest musical gatherings in Victoria’s history, with 1,200 schoolchildren coming together as one group to join the Symphony in a celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday. It’s a moment to take note of culture and community, and of how integral the arts are to our ability to express and celebrate who we are, where we have come from and what is important to us.
Each year, the Victoria Symphony’s concert venues draw thousands of people from all parts of this community and transport them to new worlds and times, while awakening memories, emotions and reflections of their lives in the experience of the music. That is especially true for young listeners coming to classical music for, perhaps, the first time. They might be our most important audience of all.
All of us naturally want our children and young people to receive the gift of knowing and understanding this experience — to know what it feels like to be in a collective listening experience where the flows and swells of excitement and personal reflection take them on their personal journeys and enrich their lives.
We want our children to grow up with something beautiful and empowering in their lives, something to rely on individually while giving them cause to be a part of a community of shared experience. We want to give them options to balance the isolation of screens and earphones, and an alternative to the unnatural camaraderie of social media.
Next Sunday afternoon at Save-onFoods Memorial Centre, the Victoria Symphony will present its second Rink Cycle concert. It brings together 1,200 elementary and high-school students to make music with us: singers, dancers, band students, string students and First Nations drummers, all joining forces in a shared experience alongside the members of the Victoria Symphony, as, together, we perform iconic, celebratory music about Canada and written by Canadians.
It will be a massive outpouring of a collective passion for music. The memories of those young musicians will be imprinted for life with the experience of being a part of something bigger than themselves and yet reliant on each individual for success.
Perhaps even greater than putting on a concert of this magnitude is the preparation that goes into it. Teachers from across the Victoria and Sooke school districts have been working for years to teach the children about notes, rhythms and sound quality, team responsibilities, and the commitment that it takes to prepare for such a concert — as, indeed, for life itself.
Our Victoria Symphony musicians have spent years, too, sharing their passion for music within our community through coaching, teaching and chamber music, while at the same time actively involving themselves in numerous performances with other arts organizations in the community.
For this concert, I especially want to thank Marcelline Moody and Sandy Grayson for all that they have done to curate and organize this event with all of the schools and teachers.
I still vividly recall my own first childhood experience hearing the Regina Symphony, and the formative influence it had on me — not just professionally, but personally. As I look toward the close of my tenure as music director here in Victoria, I know that I will always cherish the many opportunities we’ve had to bring together children with our orchestra — be it through school and kids’ concerts in the Royal Theatre, at community events such as Symphony Splash, or in our (now two) epic Rink Cycle productions.
Each time, I thrive on the experience of seeing rows and rows of beaming, shining eyes that express the impact that music is making on them in that moment. Who could ask for greater reward or memory than that?