The California Philharmonic presents Sounds Fun: Concert Experience for Young Minds at the Pasadena Central Library as a supplement to the introduction to orchestral instruments in the public schools. Designed to service children in the Pasadena Unified School District and surrounding communities, Sounds Fun offers free educational concerts by principal players from the California Philharmonic. Teachers are contacted in advance and given lesson plans to prepare their students before the concert. Students then attend a 45 minute concert in Donald R. Wright Auditorium at the Pasadena Library. Each student is given a workbook with music activities as well as a resource list of books and media available at the library.

The most recent Sounds Fun concerts were held on April 5 & 6, 2006. These concerts were enthusiastically attended by over 500 third-graders, primarily from Pasadena Unified schools. The program was comprised of several arrangements for string quartet performed by California Philharmonic musicians Hakop Mekinyan and Sabine Vener, violin; James Hanna, viola and Pamela de Almeida, cello. The musicians offered insight into the pieces, playing technique, and composers. They also related stories about their inspiration to become professional musicians.

Cal Phil believes our community is the right place to start creating the orchestras of tomorrow. Sounds Fun brings the orchestra to the community and demonstrates its relevance to the lives of today’s children. As an investment in the future, our children’s education is one of the finest contributions we can make. Sounds Fun is the California Philharmonic’s way of participating in the educational process of our community’s children, many of whom do not receive any music education in schools.

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