The right stuff: Tuscaloosa Symphony's family concert explores outer space

For Sunday's 2023 young people's concert, an annual staple since at least the mid-1980s, the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra will roam far beyond a grandfather's backyard forest-clearing full of birds, a cat and a grey wolf.

The Alabama premiere of "Give Me Space," with music and narration composed by Kenyon Wilson, the TSO's principal tubist, will take guests on a musical-virtual exploration through assemblage of a rocket, from there to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, through countdown into blast off, and then out across our solar system.

Just as Sergei Prokofiev's widely-used 1936 "Peter and the Wolf" introduces younger guests to components and functions of the orchestra through similarities to bold Peter and animals he encounters in the Russian fairytale, "Give Me Space" will serve as a primer for those less familiar with symphonic music, instruments and repertoire.

To further engage the senses, area students are bolstering with kinetic and visual embellishments, featuring dancers from the Tuscaloosa Fine Arts Academy at Paul W. Bryant High School performing, and works created by students at the Alberta School of Performing Arts hanging in the Moody Concert Hall lobby, walk-through visions of planets, moons, stars, astronauts, aliens and rockets, crafted as windows into our expanding universe.

Originally planned for the TSO in 2020, "Give Me Space" was brought forward thanks to pandemic restrictions. But that enforced gap serendipitously created time and space for added student dimensions.

"It actually was not a commission from us," said Adam Flatt, the TSO's music director, "but even before (Wilson) wrote it, he was talking with me about it, the concept behind it."

In addition to appreciating an alternative from standard kids' concerts, Flatt approved the hands-on and immersive opportunities, the better to engage kids in senses of joy and wonder.

"I love the idea of presenting music not only by a composer that the kids will be able to see in the flesh, and meet, but one who's also a member of the orchestra," Flatt said. "We're proud to present this on the Moody stage."

With narration by Kim Felder Scott, a TSO flutist, the whole project is feeling lovingly "homemade," he added.

For Natassia Perrine, an avid educator living her first year as the TSO's executive director, the family discovery, or young person's concert, offers multiple opportunities to further an educational mission. In addition to working with the area schools, and teachers Mitchell Jones and Abel Phillips at TASPA, and Celeste Crawford at TFAA/Bryant, Perrine will be leading a "Musical Read-aloud with Ms. P" at 10 a.m. Saturday in the Tuscaloosa Public Library's story castle. There, guests will learn about Alabama-born astronaut and engineer Mae Carol Jemison, the first Black woman who traveled into space, serving as mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.

Perrine's connections to Tuscaloosa go deeper than this season, having lived here about a dozen years while earning a pair of bachelor's degrees, then her master's in music education at the University of Alabama, and teaching a few years in the Tuscaloosa City Schools system before moving onward. Flatt and the TSO had been in touch well before she was offered the job, and so Perrine was aware of "Give Me Space," when talks were still in the works to present it in 2020.

"I thought that was one piece I felt like I could really prepare for," she said. "I can sink my teeth into this."

Schools and student involvement would provide the right stuff.

"Most of us learn by doing," she said. "I certainly do."

For young people who may be attending their first symphonic concert, seeing their peers on stage and at work with the grownups could not only create feelings of inclusion, but provide familiarity, comfort, and promise.

"It's a really powerful message to those kids: Not only is the orchestra something that's cool for you, but this is something you could do," she said. "It can show kids and their families some of the possibilities young people can have in the arts.

"It's not really about are you going to be the next Yo Yo Ma — I mean, you might be — but these kids are going to understand music and appreciate it, and be supporting the TSO in 2053," Perrine said.

The "Give Me Space" experience will be performed for the public at 4 p.m. Sunday in the Moody Concert Hall, on the University of Alabama campus, and then again Monday morning for third- through fifth-graders in the area. After the concert, children will be able to craft a rocket in the Choral Opera Room, and enjoy a snack, courtesy of the TSO Guild.

Students can attend all TSO events free of charge. General admission tickets for adults are $30, and be purchased by calling 205-752-5515, during ticket office hours of 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday-Friday, or visit www.tsoonline.org.

For more, see www.tsoonline.org/20222023-season-1. To see and hear Wilson talk about the origin of "Give Me Space," including his son's obsession with the cosmos, and hear him play a brief musical selection, see www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJB4em6mwA8&ab_channel=MusicwithMs.P.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Tuscaloosa Symphony's family concert takes a journey into outer space