'Romantic' music for students

acadconcert022: 'Romantic' music for students"Romantic Age" music often dealt with losing one's head but not necessarily over love. That was one of the lessons learned by California high school students at the annual Kern County Academic Decathlon "Musical Celebration of Academic Excellence" held at the Bakersfield Convention Center on November 6.

The concert is a yearly sellout, pulling in students from around the state who hear a live performance by the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra and a lecture that prepares them for the music portion of the February 1 Academic Decathlon competition. This year the subject was the Romantic Age, and students heard selections from composers of that period including Beethoven, Berlioz, Bizet, Brahms, Chopin, Dvorak, Liszt, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Mussorgsky, Rossini, Shubert, Schumann, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Verdi and Wagner.

Rafael Polido, a student at Gladstone High School in Covina, said his school comes to the concert every year.

"I don't know of anywhere we live that provides a live symphony venue for classical music, and that is why the trip to Bakersfield is so special," Polido said. "This concert gives us the background so that we will know what the music sounds like and be able to reference it in our minds during the competition. Yes, it was worth the trip."

Leading them through the music, the styles and characteristics of the composers with lecture was California State University, Bakersfield, Professor of Music Jerry Kleinsasser.

Students learned how certain lovely sounding notes on a violin may actually denote a beheading during a piece dealing with the turbulent political times in the early to middle 1800s. Did you know the brass fanfare in Rossini's "William Tell Overture" was a representation of the Swiss revolting against the Austrians? Kleinsasser got a laugh from the students when he joked, "The definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of 'The Lone Ranger.'"

Several Kern County students had a role in the education of their peers. The Liberty High School Chorale performed the "Anvil Chorus" with the symphony. Kleinsasser began by explaining to the audience that the piece was from Verdi's "Il Trovatore," an opera dealing with "kidnaped babies, people burned at the stake and a brother killed." The Anvil Chorus depicts Spanish gypsies striking their anvils at dawn and singing the praises of hard work, good wine and their gypsy women.

Elyse Siemens, a student at Shafter High, came to the concert on a field trip with students from her English class. She was impressed by the symphony and the Liberty High Chorale.

"It is pretty amazing that people have this much talent," Siemens said.

From the performance experience, Liberty High's Chad Walker and Keith Legro derived an appreciation for singing classical music.

"We really had to master the language first," Walker explained. "We had to learn what was meant and the right tones to use when we sang."

"Learning to sing classical music is a lot tougher than any other," Legro agreed. "But once you learn it, the music becomes more fun than the others because you realize it has made an impact on people for centuries."

All of the musical selections came from the national Academic Decathlon Study Guide. The concert is sponsored by the symphony, Kern County Academic Decathlon Association and Kern County Superintendent of Schools.
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