Orchestra Explorers® resources include lesson plans, a recording of music performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and guided listening segments featuring musicians from the CSO, student worksheets, posters and online extended resources.
CSO musicians featured in the Orchestra Explorers materials demonstrate their instruments, help focus students’ listening on specific sections of music and encourage their interest in studying an instrument.
Music featured in the Orchestra Explorers materials appears on one or more of the annual Very Special Promenades concerts, offering students an opportunity to connect what they have experienced in their classrooms with the experience of hearing the CSO perform live at Symphony Center.
Igor Stravinsky’s Suite from The Firebird is the inspiration for the first of four Orchestra Explorers curricula, including lessons and activities that help students develop listening skills, reflective response and creative expression.
The second set of Orchestra Explorers materials, featuring Beethoven's breathtaking Symphony No. 6, The Pastoral, includes lessons and activities that build on the skills and activities explored in The Firebird. The lessons and activities in these materials also explore musical connections to social science, nature, earth science and dance. Firebird and Pastoral Symphony materials are available now. The third set of Orchestra Explorers materials, featuring Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring will be available in the fall of 2012.
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