On Touring with Mimes . . . or Music, Noise & Silence

Last month, as part of my still-rather-new position as Education Coordinator with the Wheeling Symphony Society, I spent the better part of a week on a mini-tour with the orchestra and a pair of mimes from Magic Circle Mime Company. Over four days, we presented seven concerts in four venues before nearly 6000 audience members, most of them elementary school students and many of whom had never seen a symphony concert before. This is the Wheeling Symphony's annual Young People's Concert Tour, an education outreach program that, for 75 years, has taken symphonic music to children who might never have another opportunity to see the orchestra perform.

Maestro Andre Raphel conducts the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra.
 Metropolitan Theatre in Morgantown, WV. Thursday, April 19, 2012

Sara Mountjoy-Pepka and K. Brian Neel brought to life the three meddlesome spirits of Music, Noise and Silence, whose antics showered the concert hall with quiet, chaos, and finally, harmony with a program featuring the works of Bach, Grofe, Mendelssohn, and others. Offstage, they were more charming than their characters. I enjoyed an afternoon of shopping at my favorite costume shop with them (by coincidence - because it's the place to go) and that bruschetta at The Metropolitan. Yum!

Silence conducts the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra in Strauss's Pizzicato Polka.
Metropolitan Theatre, Morgantown, WV. April 19, 2012.

Silence triumphantly finishes Pizzicato Polka.
Metropolitan Theatre, Morgantown, WV. April 19, 2012.

Noise "tiptoes" across the stage, upsetting the maestro with his raucous ways.
Metropolitan Theatre, Morgantown, WV. April 19, 2012.

Noise enjoys a cup of tea while listening to the orchestra perform Charles Ives' Country Band March.
Metropolitan Theatre, Morgantown, WV. April 19, 2012.

Music arrives to save the concert hall from chaos.
Metropolitan Theatre, Morgantown, WV. April 19, 2012. 

Noise attempts to hide the evidence of his antics from Music.
Washington Park Middle School, Washington, PA. April 17, 2012.

Noise is caught!
Metropolitan Theatre, Morgantown, WV. April 19, 2012.

Brian, Maestro Raphel, and Sara take a bow.
Washington Park Middle School, Washington, PA. April 17, 2012.

The orchestra got into the fun and bombarded Brian with a shower of crumpled paper to drive him off the stage at the final performance. Don't worry - they were supposed to - their energy was infectious! Even the maestro embraced his inner mime and hit his nose on the wall Silence built across the stage!

At the end of the tour, Brian gave me a lopsided moustache by which always to remember this most magical experience (and then included me in his poetic redux of the tour):

Thank you, Brian and Sara, for a spectacular show on the road. (and for introducing me to Book-It!)