News Release Friday, April 13, 2012

Experience the color of sound with ESOs Technicolor family concert, Apr. 29
Piccolo. Tuba. Xylophone. Cello. The orchestra is a fantastic world of sound and color! The Elgin Symphony Orchestras final Family Fun Series concert of the 2011-2012 performance season explores the full spectrum of the symphony and establishes vital connections between the orchestra, sound and visual art. The family program, Through Sound-Colored Glasses: The Amazing Technicolor Orchestra, takes place at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 29 at the Hemmens Cultural Center in Elgin. The program includes classics like Bizets March of the Toreadors, Handels Water Music, and Sousas The Stars and Stripes Forever. Audiences will also experience visuals, explanations and ESOs trademark special touches that make the music more meaningful and the concert more exciting. Randal Swiggum, the ESOs education conductor, leads the ESO through the program. An array of hands-on activities and crafts related to the concerts theme begin at 2 p.m. on the lower level of the Hemmens Cultural Center. These art projects and music activities set the tone for the concert by getting families excited for the music they are about to hear and allowing kids to do what kids do best dig in and participate. Pre-concert activities are developed and monitored by volunteer teachers from School District U-46. For each ESO family concert, Swiggum, who is acclaimed for his creative and innovative music education programming, strives to give young people the tools not just to identify instruments, but also to see more, listen deeply, integrate more information, and make greater sense of their experience with the orchestra and symphonic music. By giving music more meaning, Swiggum aims for kids to own that music and come to love it. In particular, this concert leans heavily on all kinds of connections with visual art, beyond color, explains Swiggum. Rather than just introducing the various timbres of the instruments, I thought, Why dont we push the color analogy as far as we can, to the realm of visual art? After all, painting and music share much of the same vocabularyline, form, color, rhythm, repetition, texture, harmonyand there is much to be learned about how music is put together by comparing it with visual art. With this amount of careful thought and preparation dedicated to each concert, it is easy to see why the ESO Family Fun Series is far more than just a kids concert. Children and parents alike leave ESO family concerts expressing amazement at learning so much more than they expected, and in such fun and engaging ways. Tickets to Through Sound-Colored Glasses are $10 for children and $15 for adults; seating is general admission. Pre-concert activities are free. Food and beverage is available for purchase.

Tickets to all ESO concerts are on sale at the ESO box office, 20 DuPage Court in downtown Elgin near Al's Cafe & Creamery and the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce. ESO box office hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call the ESO box office at 847-888-4000 or order online at www.elginsymphony.org. The Hemmens Cultural Center, ESOs primary concert home, is located at 45 Symphony Way, just south of Kimball Street and adjacent to The Centre of Elgin. The Elgin Symphony Orchestra is especially grateful for 2011-2012 season support from IHC Construction Companies, LLC and the Daily Herald Media Group. In addition the ESO thanks S. E. Ainsworth and Family and the EFS Foundation for their support of the Family Fun Series.

Please direct media inquiries to Tracy Hulett Director of Marketing & Communications t.hulett@elginsymphony.org Heidi Zwart Healy Marketing & Communications Manager h.healy@elginsymphony.org Elgin Symphony Orchestra 847-888-0404 20 DuPage Court Elgin, IL 60120-6424