Chamber players tickle kids' funny bones and interest

Concert review |

Here are some of the things audience members did during the Seattle Chamber Music Society's Family Concert Tuesday night:

Suck a thumb; braid hair; gnaw on a nail; scratch an itch; rub eyes; yawn; whisper loudly; cry; whine; drop coins; unfasten Velcro; eat a snack; change seats; undress; kick off shoes; bounce in a chair; make paper airplanes from the programs; hug someone.

All while listening to the Seattle Brass Company (Brian Chin, trumpet; Justin Emerich, trumpet; Jeffrey Fair, horn; Mark Babbitt, trombone; Jonathan Hill, tuba) play 10 brief pieces. In between, each player took turns offering entertaining explanations on various aspects of their instruments. The sillier it got, the louder the appreciative giggles.

Mark Babbitt's demonstration of how the trombone amplified the vibrations of his lips drew chortles of delight. He blew a series of impressively robust raspberries and then held his trombone to his mouth to convert those loud baby noises into notes.

Justin Emerich played mouse squeaks and horse whinnies on his trumpet, and brought the house down with his "funny noise" — an unmistakably flatulent rumble.

Musical fart jokes — what a great way to introduce children to the pleasures of classical music. No, really. Connecting the bodily to the sublime — that's what great art does.

Certainly the children — mostly ages 4 to 8, half of them accompanied by grandparents — had no problem making this connection. They easily moved from guffaws to attentive, if wiggly, silence. Some of the more kid-friendly pieces on the program included Samuel Scheidt's centuries-old Galliard Battaglia, which my 8-year-old friend Jade, "really liked," because it "sounded very cheerful."

Her second favorite piece was the instantly familiar "Promenade" sequence from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. She hummed the melody throughout the two-minute excerpt.

The pleasant shock of hearing another familiar tune run through Frank Meacham's American Patrol made Jade cry out happily. "That was Yankee Doodle! I think I like this one best, too!"

Other audience favorites included a little Brahms ditty, which inspired a girl in the front row to dance dramatically with her arms and a little boy, about 2, to sway back and forth on his knees while staring down the person behind him. Both arm-dancer and swaying-boy also seemed to relish the teasing of Sonny Kompanek's "Killer Tango"; their movements rhythmically intensified in time with the music. Tangos tend to do that.

At the end of the concert, the audience was invited to the stage to "pet" the instruments and talk to the musicians. Jade returned with a blissed-out smile. "I touched a trumpet key!"

My favorite concert moment happened during the question-and-answer session. A precocious 3-year-old boy in blue cowboy boots stood up and asked:

"What do you do with your spit?"

Horn player Jeffrey Fair's explanation was gentlemanly and precise. But he could have just said, "We magically turn it into music."

Sumi Hahn: sumi@bewodo.org