Chicago Sun-Times Article

Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago, IL
September 7, 2007
By Delia O'Hara

Classical music might be especially good for kids, stimulating their brains more than other kinds of music -- the so-called Mozart effect -- according to some research. But classical music needs young fans, too, to keep it alive.

So Noteplay provides a win-win scenario for both Chicago families and the city's classical music scene. The free daylong celebration of classical music Saturday at Roosevelt University is part of the City's "Art of Play" program, compliments of Chicago-based Accessible Contemporary Music, a not-for-profit group devoted to promoting the music of living composers.

Noteplay offers Interactive games, live performances and workshops for all ages, says ACM executive director Seth Boustead, himself a composer.

"The morning is more for the little guys" as young as 6 months in the targeted 9 a.m. "Music for Young People" session, Boustead says. Once they head off for lunch and, perhaps, a nap, "the afternoon is for adults" and older children.

Kids will have their chance to have fun with classical music Saturday in Noteplay at Roosevelt University in downtown Chicago.

More than a dozen individuals or groups will perform, including the Lord of the Yum-Yum (Paul Velat), who uses an array of technology to soup up classical favorites; the Gunnelpumpers, an "electro-tribal improv" group with many influences, including classical music, and the high-school-age Cerberus Trio.

"We want to demystify classical music," Boustead says. "We want to bring the audience back."

ACM and its friends are hopeful about reaching young children while their minds are still open to all kinds of music.

Jenny Bradley Stallard, a New York-based music teacher who specializes in teaching young children, will lead several interactive games that aim to develop children's listening skills -- Freeze Dance, for example, and Listening Maps, in which children trace the journey of a piece of music through different instruments and various tempos.

"Music makes people happy," says Stallard, who met Boustead when both were teaching at the Old Town School of Folk Music. But when popular music is as short and simple as it tends to be now, appreciation of more complex kinds of music has to be taught, she says.

"It's all about getting kids excited about music," Stallard says.

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