Princeton NJ Schools Press Releases

Middle School Students Combine Music With Art As Part Of Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s Listen Up! Program

PRINCETON, N.J. – Twenty-two students from Princeton area middle schools will engage their talents for music appreciation and art after attending a live concert on January 24 by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. The sixth- through eighth-graders are participants in Listen Up!, an initiative of the PSO’s BRAVO! education program, now in its third year.  
 
The January 24 concert also marked the debut on the podium of the orchestra’s new Music Director, Rossen Milanov.
 
The conductor greeted the students during his opening remarks to the audience, expressing his hopes that the live concert experience would inspire the pre-teens to become future fans of classical music.
 
The students will be asked by their teachers to create a work of art based on one of the works they heard during the January 24 program, Alberto Ginastera’s Latin-flavored Variaciones Concertantes. The completed artwork will be on display in the lobby of Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium during the PSO’s March 21 Classical Series concert, which is being presented in partnership with the Princeton University Art Museum.
 
Participating schools included Stuart Country Day School, the Hun School of Princeton, Princeton Charter School, John Witherspoon Middle School and Montgomery Upper and Lower Middle Schools.
 
An extension of the PSO’s BRAVO! education program,  Listen Up! was developed to inspire an appreciation of classical music in middle school students by inviting them to attend PSO concerts at no cost and create art based on what they hear. Listen Up! also provides a fun social outing for young people to enjoy with their peers.
 
The PSO thanks the following teachers who dedicated their time and energies so that their students could participate in this innovative project:
 
Lara Darpino, John Witherspoon Middle School
 
 
Arlene Milgram, Aurelle Sprout and Peggy Rose, Montgomery Upper and Lower Middle Schools
Phyllis Wright, Stuart Country Day School
John Sabol, the Hun School of Princeton
Elisa Hirvonen, Princeton Charter School
 

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
CONTACT:
 
Melanie Clarke, PSO Executive Director
(609) 497-0020
melcog@hotmail.com