Lexington Philharmonic ensemble will play children’s concert Saturday in Williamsburg

Early Saturday evening, local children will have the chance to enjoy a performance by members of the Lexington Philharmonic, who will be doing a concert and story telling performance geared for the kids.

A Lexington Phiharmonic ensemble will perform a free children’s concert in Williamsburg Saturday.

After the concert, there will be a musical petting zoo of sorts with four tables set up with a variety of children’s sized instruments that children will be able to pick up and even play. This will include everything from half-size and larger violins to wind, percussion instruments and even harps.

At the same time as the instrument petting zoo, local musicians will be on hand showing how different kinds of music can come from the same kinds of instruments.

“We are going to have a concert for kids. It will be a string trio. They will have a kind of interactive program for maybe an hour at the most. It is very short,” said Dal Macon, who came up with the idea for holding the little concert.

Macon noted that the Lexington Philharmonic generally does these types of concerts in and around the Lexington area, which are affectionately known as PB&J concerts after peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which are often popular with children.

“It invites children to come. It is not the whole philharmonic orchestra. It is just a little ensemble from musicians in the orchestra. They play a little something as music that is accompanied as another event,” Macon noted.

“I went to one with my grandchildren, which was at a planetarium, so there were stars, a celestial solar system and there was a narrator. There was music by a horn ensemble.”

The concert will take place starting at 6 p.m. in the corner lot at the intersection of South Third Street and Main Street in Williamsburg.

Saturday’s interactive show will start with the narrator reading a poem about bullying that is paired with music titled, “I Will Not Tease Rebecca Grimes.”

The narrator and artists will then move to demonstrating how, when listening to music, there is a generally an instrument or voice that is the most important.

The group will do this by walking the students through hand motions for when the violin is speaking or the cello is speaking or when the viola is speaking. All of this is paired with music to help demonstrate the idea.

The group then moves to showing the students how music can help you think about what is going to happen next in a story.

This is demonstrated by reading the beginning of a story, having the musicians perform different types of music, and then having the children think about what will happen next.

The final part of the program is a compilation of the previous activities, and the students get to work together through voting to create their own story based on the music.

Saturday’s program is a partnership between five local entities, including: the Whitley County Public Library, Whitley County Tourism, the City of Williamsburg, the University of Kentucky Fine Arts Extension Service and the University of the Cumberlands’ music department.