(enchanting music) - [Announcer] This is a production of SDPB.

(bright music) (no audio) (gentle orchestra music) (gentle orchestra music continues) (audience applauding) (gentle dramatic orchestra music) (gentle dramatic orchestra music continues) (audience applauding) (dramatic orchestra music) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (audience applauding) - Good afternoon, everybody.

My name is Thomas Fortner, but you could call me Mr. F Sharp.

And that was the very first movement of a piece of music called "The Carnival of the Animals" by the French composer Camille Saint-Saens.

We just played the introduction and the "Lion's Royal March".

Did you hear the cellos, and the basses, and the pianos imitating a lion's roar?

The composer used these instruments because they have the ability to make that low, deep sound just like lions were.

And speaking of lions, our music today is about animals.

So I thought I could bring an animal expert to tell us a little bit more.

Please welcome my friend Leigh Spencer.

(all applauding) This is Leigh Spencer from the Great Plains Zoo, butterfly House and Aquarium.

Leigh, did you hear the king of the jungle?

Is that what they say about the lion?

- I heard lions roaring, but you know they are not really found in the jungle.

Lions are found in the Savannah, which is a grassland habitat in Africa.

And if you think about how a lion looks with that tan color, you can tell that they fit better in a grassland habitat than they would in the forest.

- I see, so certain adaptations make them well suited for the Savannah, like their color, right?

- Like their color and many other things too.

All animals have jobs in their environment and fit in their place.

- Fit in their place.

Well, each instrument of the orchestra has its own special role to play when they play together.

And just like the instruments of the orchestra, different animals have different adaptations.

So Leigh, do you have a favorite animal?

- My favorite animal at the zoo is called Archimedes.

He's a great horned owl, and I think we have a picture of him.

There he is.

- Whoa.

- The great horned owl is the most common owl in North America and they are native to South Dakota.

- [Thomas] So why does he look so wise?

Is that because he's so smart?

- He does have really big eyes that make him look smart.

But really as birds go, owls are definitely not the smartest, that would be parrots and crows, which we know because of training and working with them and how fast they learn.

Parrots and crows can learn faster than their trainers can keep up with them sometimes.

Other birds like hawks and falcons learn fast, but not quite that fast.

Maybe a few days to a week for a new behavior.

When it comes to owls like Archimedes, it takes a long time for them to learn things.

But with a patient trainer and hard work, they get there eventually.

Now, as we're talking about imitating animal sound, a great horned owl is the one that makes a typical owl hoot.

It sounds like this (hooting).

But they make lots of other sounds too.

And there are even owls that don't hoot at all.

- Oh well, we have another piece of music that we're about to play.

It doesn't make an owl sound, but it does imitate another type of bird.

Saint-Saens uses the violins and the pianos to portray the (clucking) of the chickens.

And he even has the violas and the violins go (clucking).

You'll hear that in a little bit.

And the clarinet played by our very own Christopher Hill will be imitating the call of the rooster in the morning (crowing).

So let's see if you can hear the chickens and the roosters.

(uptempo dramatic orchestra music) (uptempo dramatic orchestra music continues) (uptempo dramatic orchestra music continues) (uptempo dramatic orchestra music continues) (uptempo dramatic orchestra music continues) (audience applauding) Did you hear the rooster call (clucking) in the violins?

So up until now, our music has been making animal sounds with instruments.

But these next few pieces of music will focus on locomotion, which is how animals move through their environment.

First, we will focus on fast locomotion of the fast animals - Like a cheetah, or an antelope, or even a falcon.

- [Thomas] I see, well, I bet there are some things about those animals that help make them fast.

- [Leigh] Indeed, so most of our fast animals are going to have long, narrow body shape and a lot of them will have dark marks under their eyes to reduce glare just like athletes do.

- [Thomas] And why would an animal be fast in the first place?

- That's easy, it's either to catch their food or to avoid being food.

But how is the composer going to represent fast animals?

- Well, Saint-Saens just decided to write fast music to represent these fast animals.

Our wonderful pianists here, Anne Waltner and Sherilyn Ortman will be performing ferociously fast music to represent fast animals.

(uptempo dramatic piano music) (uptempo dramatic piano music continues) (uptempo dramatic piano music continues) (uptempo dramatic piano music continues) (audience applauding) - Woo!

Let's hear it again for those fast notes played by our pianists.

Yeah, that takes a lot of practice to play that fast.

So the next piece of music is about slow animals, and this one specifically is called "The Tortoise".

- I have one of those with me.

Would you like to meet her?

- Totally.

- All right, so this is Allison and she is handling our yellow footed tortoise named Shelly.

- Hi Shelly.

Is her name Shelly because of her shell?

- It is, and her shell is why she's so slow.

- Well, I'd be pretty slow too if I had to carry that big heavy shell around all day.

- Kind of like someone carrying a big instrument, like a double bass?

- Yeah, I guess carrying a big heavy instrument would slow you down a little bit.

- The shell does make it harder for her to move.

Since she can't shift her body as she walks, she's basically falling onto her feet every time she takes a step.

- Well, then why would she have a shell if it makes her slow down?

What's the point?

- It protects her.

And because it protects her from most predators, she doesn't really need to be fast, she doesn't have to run away, but we're gonna let her run away now.

Everybody say goodbye to the tortoise.

(audience groaning) So the next piece of music is slow.

- Yes, the next piece of music is slow.

In fact, the melody that we play in "The Tortoise" is very slow.

But do you wanna hear a secret?

- [Child 1] Yeah.

- It's actually originally written to be played very fast.

So let's hear the original fast version of the melody.

It's called "The Can Can."

(upbeat dramatic orchestra music) But because this is about tortoise, tortoises, it's slow music.

So listen very carefully for the slowed down version of "The Can Can" as we play "The Tortoises".

(gentle orchestra music) (gentle orchestra music continues) (gentle orchestra music continues) (gentle orchestra music continues) (gentle orchestra music continues) (gentle orchestra music continues) (gentle orchestra music continues) (gentle orchestra music continues) (gentle orchestra music continues) (gentle orchestra music continues) (gentle orchestra music continues) (gentle orchestra music continues) (gentle orchestra music continues) (gentle orchestra music continues) (audience applauding) Our next piece of music is supposed to represent a very large animal, an elephant.

What instrument do you think would be best suited to represent an elephant?

What do you think?

- [Child 2] Flute?

- Not the flute.

- [Child 3] The bass!

- It would be the double bass.

It's the biggest string instrument on stage.

And this double bass played by Dr. Chiarello we heard earlier helping represent the lion's roar.

But in this case, they will play the elegant music of the elephant.

(elegant bass music) (elegant bass music continues) (elegant bass music continues) (elegant bass music continues) (audience applauding) (elegant bass music) (elegant bass music continues) (elegant bass music continues) (elegant bass music continues) (elegant bass music continues) (elegant bass music continues) (audience applauding) So even though the elephant is a big animal and the bass is a big instrument, an elephant can still be elegant and the bass can still be elegant.

Let's hear it again for Dr. Chiarello.

(audience applauding) The next two selections of music will paint a picture with their sound.

The first will have hopping, bouncing, kangaroo music played by our pianist.

(bright bouncy music) - That does make me think of kangaroos jumping.

They are shaped for jumping with their big back legs in that long tail for balance.

- [Thomas] Oh, jumping seems like a weird way of getting around.

- It's actually really useful.

At a certain speed, a kangaroo can cover a lot of distance without using a lot of energy.

- Well, after the jumping music, we will have something completely different.

Saint-Saens wanted to create a sound world that makes us think of an aquarium, water, or even an ocean with ripples and waves.

The strings will produce a sound that makes us think of gentle waves.

(gentle violin music) (gentle violin music continues) (gentle violin music continues) (gentle violin music continues) And at the surface, the pianos will represent the shimmering ripples.

(gentle enchanting music) (gentle enchanting music continues) - That sounds like water moving.

And you know that makes me think of fish.

There are lots of different kinds of fish, all suited for different places where they live in fresh or salt water.

I think we should listen to the music now both pieces.

Imagine kangaroos and then imagine fish swimming for the second part.

- All right.

(gentle bouncy music) (gentle bouncy music continues) (gentle bouncy music continues) (gentle bouncy music continues) (gentle bouncy music continues) (gentle bouncy music continues) (gentle bouncy music continues) (gentle enchanting music) (audience applauding) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (audience applauding) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (gentle enchanting music continues) (audience applauding) Now, we're going to combine some of these concepts that we've covered before to create a whole habitat, a musical habitat and a physical habitat.

Some of our instruments will be setting a scene, others will be imitating animal movement, locomotion, while others will be making animal sounds.

But before we do that, our violins are gonna take a moment to be silly and have some fun.

They will mimic a donkey's bray.

You know (braying).

(playful violin music) (playful violin music continues) Did you hear that (braying)?

- That definitely sounded like donkeys.

But what about building a habitat?

- Well, habitats, they're very complex places, and a forest is a very complex habitat.

Lots of different layers.

Trees and tree trunks.

So Saint-Saens used the pianos to create this dense layered effect of playing many different notes at the same time.

They call that playing chords.

He uses both pianos.

So this is the forest layers in the piano.

(gentle piano music) - I definitely hear the layered forest.

But you did mention animals.

Where do those come in?

- Well, the clarinet will portray a bird called the cuckoo.

(light clarinet music) - [Leigh] That sounds like a cuckoo, which is a real bird by the way and not just found on clocks.

- All right, well, we will hear the whole thing together, starting with the donkeys and the violins with their hee haws, and then the dense layered forest chords, and the piano, and the cuckoo in the clarinet.

(playful violin music) (playful violin music continues) (playful violin music continues) (playful violin music continues) (audience applauding) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (audience applauding) - I really like that cuckoo.

Birds are my favorites, you know.

- Well we've got more bird music.

You'll like this next section because it features our strings mimicking the fast, fluttering of bird wings.

It's called tremolo on the violin and the viola and cello.

And the flutes will be mimicking the chattering (chattering) of a bird.

So let's welcome Will Cedeno to play the bird part on the flutes as we will play "The Aviary".

(audience applauding) (uptempo bright music) (uptempo bright music continues) (uptempo bright music continues) (uptempo bright music continues) (uptempo bright music continues) (uptempo bright music continues) (uptempo bright music continues) (uptempo bright music continues) (audience applauding) - That made me think of sparrows and other birds really busy at a bird feeder.

It was really fun.

- Pretty cool, and a lot of fast notes in the flutes.

So we're gonna have some more fun.

The composer was silly in this piece because he's trying to represent something that we all experience from time to time, which is struggling to get something right.

Sometimes, it takes us a lot of tries, a lot of practice before we get something right.

- So what's the focus of the next one?

- Well yeah, so the focus of this next piece is actually scales.

- Ooh, I brought some of those.

- You brought scales?

- I did!

(Thomas and audience gasping) Those aren't scales, that's a snake!

- You said scales.

A red-tailed boa is covered in scales.

- That's not what I meant.

I meant scales on a piano like this.

(dramatic piano music) - Oh.

- Yeah.

- Well, while she's here, this is Gemma, a red-tailed boa.

This species is found in the rainforest of South America.

- I guess she does have scales.

- She does, she has different size scales in different parts of her body.

She's got big wide ones on her belly to help her move smoothly.

Little bitty ones on her back to help protect her.

Mr. F Sharp, would you like to touch her?

- I don't know, I'm kind of scared.

- I think you should.

What do you think?

Should he touch her?

- [Audience] Yeah!

- Okay, if you insist.

- Just right here this way.

- Oh, she's actually really soft and really pretty, hi Gemma.

- That's very brave of you.

But since this isn't quite the scales you meant, we'll go ahead and say goodbye to the snake.

Everybody say goodbye to the snake.

- Bye, Gemma.

(audience groaning) All right, so can we talk about musical scales now?

- Absolutely.

- All right, well, scales are one of those things that all musicians must do for practice.

They help you learn the muscle memory that's necessary to play the right notes at the right time on your instruments.

They are the building blocks of music, kind of like bricks for a house.

- Or scales on a snake.

- I guess so.

I heard a rumor that maybe some of you guys here will be learning an instrument soon.

- [Child 4] Maybe.

- Yeah, well hopefully as we've demonstrated the various instruments of the orchestra, you might have a better idea of what you might wanna choose.

But you should also keep in mind that scales are really important to learning an instrument.

And Saint-Saens our composer plays with these scales in this next piece.

You guys remember Archimedes the owl from earlier?

- Yeah.

- Right, on the pictures?

- Yeah.

- Leigh, you mentioned that it sometimes takes Archimedes longer to learn behaviors than other kinds of birds.

- It does, but we do lots of practice and hard work and we get there.

- Practicing, well, practicing is really important.

So we're going to pretend for you that we are practicing our scales and show you that maybe we don't quite get it right the first time, but little by little, eventually we'll get it.

(dramatic orchestra music) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (audience applauding) Got it!

- Before you go on to the next piece of music, I would like to have our animal handler Allison, come back out on stage.

- Hey Allison.

- So I think Allison did a really good job handling our animals today.

What do y'all think?

- Yeah.

(audience cheering and applauding) Way to go, Allison!

- Thanks for your help today, Allison.

Did you know that Allison also plays violin?

She's in the community orchestra here in Sioux Falls.

- That's really cool, but not that surprising 'cause a lot of people learn to play an instrument at some point in their life.

And when they grow up, maybe they become a musician and play in a professional orchestra, but maybe they do something else like become a person that works at the zoo, or they work in maybe farmers like you guys do too, right?

Our pianists' secret is they actually are farmers and professional pianists.

I have a flight instructor, I'm learning to fly who's a pilot, and a professional musician.

And I know a conductor who's also an airline pilot, so there's lots of cool things you can do that can all be helped by learning to play an instrument.

My brother, John is a person like that.

He learned to play the violin.

See him in the yellow shirt there playing the violin?

And next to him, that's me.

I played the cello.

And he grew up to become a paleontologist.

That's a scientist who studies fossils like dinosaurs.

So let's hear from my brother, John.

(audience applauding) - Hello there, my name is John Fortner, and I am Mr. Fortner little brother, and I'm a Paleontologist.

Now, a paleontologist is somebody who uses fossils of extinct animals like these dinosaurs here to understand how they lived and behaved while they were alive millions of years ago.

And in this lab, what I do is I use the anatomy of living reptiles like this alligator, this ostrich, this snake and this turtle to understand how animals like T-Rex here fed while it was alive 65 million years ago.

Isn't that cool?

- Pretty cool, right?

- [Leigh] Pretty cool.

- Well, fossils, that ties in really perfectly with the next piece of music because it's actually called "Fossils".

But you might be wondering how Saint-Saens used an instrument to portray fossils.

Well, he actually used a percussion instrument called the xylophone, and it sounds like playing on bones.

(bright cheerful xylophone music) (audience applauding) Leo plays a mean fossils, I mean xylophone, thanks Leo.

Okay, so we're gonna play "The Fossils Movement".

(bright cheerful orchestra music) (bright cheerful orchestra music continues) (bright cheerful orchestra music continues) (bright cheerful orchestra music continues) (bright cheerful orchestra music continues) (bright cheerful orchestra music continues) (bright cheerful orchestra music continues) (bright cheerful orchestra music continues) (audience applauding) Great job, Leo.

So Leigh, you mentioned earlier that you love birds.

Do you know a lot about swans?

- I do, I've actually seen some out in the wild.

- Wow, well, our next piece is called "The Swan".

You can see one up there.

But musically, Saint-Saens will paint the picture of a swan starting with the beautiful flowing type water music in the pianos.

And then the cello will elegantly, gracefully portray the way that the swan glides on the top of the water.

- You know, swans are really graceful and lovely, but they're not very nice.

They are very protective of their young and they're big birds.

Imagine one hissing and running at you with its wings out to the side.

- That sounds pretty terrifying.

But do they make a nice song.

I've heard something that's called a swan song.

- Unfortunately, honking, whistling and hissing is about all they've got.

- Well, at least they look pretty.

- They do have that, and they move beautifully like the music.

- Well, let's listen to this beautiful music called "The Swan".

(gentle elegant orchestra music) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (gentle elegant orchestra music continues) (audience applauding) Beautiful, let's give Robbie Erhard, a big round of applause.

Let's hear it for Robbie.

(audience cheering and applauding) And let's hear it for our wonderful pianists who have played so many notes today, we have Anne here and Sherilyn let's hear it for our pianists.

(audience cheering and applauding) And finally, big round of applause for your South Dakota Symphony Orchestra.

(audience cheering and applauding) And wait, I almost forgot a big round of applause for Leigh Spencer.

(audience cheering and applauding) Thanks so much for bringing all of those animals.

We have one more piece of music left, and it's our grand finale.

Now, this section of music has little snippets, little fragments of other animal music that you've heard before.

So listen very carefully and see if you recognize it.

(uplifting lively orchestra music) (uplifting lively orchestra music continues) (uplifting lively orchestra music continues) (uplifting lively orchestra music continues) (uplifting lively orchestra music continues) (uplifting lively orchestra music continues) (uplifting lively orchestra music continues) (uplifting lively orchestra music continues) (uplifting lively orchestra music continues) (uplifting lively orchestra music continues) (uplifting lively orchestra music continues) (uplifting lively orchestra music continues) (audience applauding) Thank you so much everybody.

Hope you had a great time.

Get home safe.

(audience cheering) (indistinct audience chatter)