Festival mixes children's art with classical music

Cape Girardeans were treated to a rare combination of crayons and chamber music Sunday.

The Arts Council of Southeast Missouri sponsored the concert at Old St. Vincent's Church as part of the annual Children's Arts Festival.

Musicians from the Southeast Chamber Players performed in the sun-kissed sanctuary. Children and seniors in their Sunday best mingled with denim-clad teen-agers and tousled university students.

The concert and a reception following were the culmination of a two-month creative project in Cape Girardeau elementary schools.

Conductor Robert M. Gifford explained that the project, co-sponsored by the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, the Cape Girardeau School District and the Missouri Arts Council, was an effort to show children the relationship between arts and music.

The Southeast Chamber Players provided recorded music the schools and asked students to create works of visual art while they listened.

From that project, more than 500 pieces of student artwork were submitted to the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri and were judged by a team of art educators and area artists.

The team selected 70 of the children's works of art to be featured in a printed booklet, which served as the program for the concert.

One of the recorded pieces used in art classes was Antonin Dvorak's "Slavonic Dance, Op. 46 No. 8," which was the final number in Sunday's concert.

Also performed were a 15-year-old Felix Mendelssohn's "Nocturno, Op. 24" and Leos Janacek's "Mladi Suite," also called his "youth symphony."

Musician Robert Fruehwald juggled flute and piccolo for that number.

In one of the concert's highlights, trumpet soloist Marc Fulgham led the ensemble through the Marche, Valse and Galop movements of "Le Gay Paris."

After the concert, musicians, children, parents and other art lovers crowded into the arts council gallery on Independence Street.

Would listen to it at home

Students stood under their artwork and autographed concert programs for visitors.

Madeleine Courvoisier, a fourth-grader at Charles Clippard Elementary, said recognized the Dvorak piece from the classroom. His music inspired her to create a vibrant collage made with colored markers.

She said she liked the dance and, if given the opportunity, would even listen to it in her room at home.

Third-grader Myles Edwards of Alma Schrader said they didn't play the music from his class at the concert.

His watercolor and black crayon piece had a style reminiscent of the early works of Russian painter Vasili Kandinsky.

Andy Seyer, a fourth-grader at Jefferson Elementary doesn't remember what he was listening to when he finger-painted colorful ribbons through a mass of black.

And Britney Schott, in fifth grade at St. Augustine School, remembers that "it was classical stuff. Like, there was only instruments and no singing. They didn't play it today."

She crayoned her way through a massive ocean scene featuring a sunset, orcas and islands.

The children's artwork will be displayed through December in Gallery 100 and The Lorimier Gallery at the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri.

abuchanan@semissourian.com

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