In other words, making the right choices is key. Geert Riem is the programme manager for deFilharmonie, the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, and is explaining how they handle what sounds like quite a daunting task – arranging classical concerts for children.

The starting point for Baron von Münchhausen, the Philharmonic’s brand-new creation for children, is Joseph Haydn’s symphony no 83, La Poule. With that selection made, Riem and his artistic planning department, together with the conductor and author, then had to decide which excerpts to use and how to integrate a story.

To complement the 18th-century music, the team looked to the Baron von Münchhausen, whose extraordinary tales about his life as a soldier, hunter and sportsman formed the basis for Rudolf Erich Raspe’s Baron Munchausen's Narrative of His Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia of 1785. The Philharmonic has taken seven or eight of these tall stories, which have been passed down from generation to generation of children, and adapted them to mesh with the mood and emotions of Haydn’s music.

“It’s so much more than a ‘normal’ concert,” explains Riem, as music from an orchestral rehearsal drifts up to his second-floor office, which is decorated with pictures and paper models that children have sent him as thankyou presents. “We start from the music, but the challenge is to find a good story, good actors and a good balance between music and text.”

Often the text will have a second layer aimed at adults, similar to the technique used in animation films like Shrek. “It’s fun for the authors to add a second nuanced level,” notes Riem, adding that sometimes the actor simply throws in a joke for the adults.

A KIDconcert is aimed at six- to 12-year olds and lasts about an hour, with 40 minutes dedicated to music and 20 minutes to text. Riem, who has four adult children of his own, acknowledges that concentration spans are not as long as they used to be when the Philharmonic started the tradition of kids’ concerts in the 1970s.

“It’s much more difficult today,” he says. “We must capture their attention with something from their world.”

The orchestra’s efforts to reach out to this age group can also be seen online; the KIDsite page has a violin case landing noisily on the floor and opening up to show slips of paper and photos. Click on one, and the Philharmonic’s musicians talk to the young internet surfers about their instruments and allow them to discover all the sounds that make up an orchestra. Another link takes you to a diary of upcoming children’s concerts and a third to the CD books that accompany KIDconcerts. The site is noisy, colourful and fun.

The Philharmonic has plenty of other initiatives for toddlers through to teenagers. “Sex and the Orchestra” is one such, aimed at 12- to 18-year olds. Held in a rehearsal hall at the Philharmonic’s Antwerp base, young people come and hear the conductor talk about how passion and love can be expressed through music.

“It’s interactive and much more focussed on the music,” Riem explains. “Every performance is different. We start from the same musical material, but, depending on the reactions, it can go in very different directions.”

Some of the more conservative schools in fact found the title a bit too racy and asked the orchestra to remove the word “sex”. “We were a bit surprised because everyone knows Sex and the City”, Riem says with a chuckle, adding that they did change the title for those schools that asked.

The Philharmonic certainly tries to spice up the image of classical music and convince young people that it’s exciting and vibrant. In another project called Masterworks, video projections, studio lights and digital television broadcasts take centre stage along with the orchestra. Aimed at those aged 17 and above, the Philharmonic travels to the studios of the Eurocam Media Center in Lint and stages a true spectacle to bring to life the story behind a piece of music.

A specially-recorded documentary is shown on a big screen and live music played, while the whole performance is broadcast on the digital television channel EXQI. This season’s Masterwork is Scheherazade by the Russian composer Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, to be performed in March under the baton of leading British conductor Martyn Brabbins.

The orchestra, subsidised by the Flemish government, has a general budget of about €2 million for artistic planning, with children and social projects taking up about 15 to 20% of that. The orchestra isn’t obliged to do so many projects for young people; it’s a matter of wanting to do so and, of course, investing in the future. “It’s a bit of a cliché, but they are the audience of the future,” Riem points out.

“Research has shown that first impressions are quite lasting, so if you want to get them back to the concert hall, you have to make a good first impression.”

The ideas keep bubbling away, and the Philharmonic is already planning a Children’s Festival Day when the orchestra settles into its new residence in Antwerp’s Queen Elisabeth concert hall as of autumn 2012. The new venue will provide many small rooms, which will allow all sorts of workshops to take place during a day of music. The plan is to close the festival with a concert in the 2,000-capacity hall. “It will be an opportunity to explore the orchestra and the new venue,” says Riem.

Baron von Münchhausen
31 January
Antwerp (11.00) and Ghent (16.00)
www.defilharmonie.be

Conducting for kids

British conductor Martyn Brabbins is the Philharmonic’s principal guest conductor and has a wealth of experience conducting concerts aimed at a younger audience. The orchestra’s two permanent conductors – Philippe Herreweghe, who concentrates on music up to the middle of the 19th century, and Jaap van Zweden, whose main focus is from the mid-19th century onwards, have also been involved in youth concerts.“From time to time, the big-name conductors like to do these things, but not every year,” says Geert Riem. Such performances are therefore an opportunity to invite young conductors. But as the Philharmonic’s programming and planning manager discovered, such experiments can sometimes prove risky.“I made a mistake once by giving a chance to a very young conductor, who just didn’t have enough experience,” Riem recalls. “You need to know the repertoire and where the tricky passages are, so you finish rehearsing the orchestra quickly and can move on to the difficult part of adding in all the different elements.”This young conductor needed too much time to work with the orchestra, and the whole experience was a struggle. “Never again!” exclaims Riem, who now has a pool of conductors who know how to put on a successful children’s concert.