Kids, costumes and music – a great mix at 'Creepy Classics'

Friday, October 10, 2008

Costumes are the order of the day for the Purdue Symphony Orchestra’s annual Halloween family pops concert “Creepy Classics” set for 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 19, at the Long Center, 111 N. Sixth St., in downtown Lafayette.

Admission is free.

Short works by classical giants like Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn will mix with John Williams’ memorable Star Wars music, themes from funky television shows like The Addams Family and traditional Halloween fare like “The Monster Mash.”           

 

The Long Center will be decorated for the event with costumed greeters at the doors. Costumed musicians will parade through the aisles to begin the event.

 

“Probably the most anticipated moment of the afternoon is the traditional Halloween parade when youngsters get to show off their costumes to the crowd as they walk across the stage and pick up a treat bag from director Andrew King,” says Kathy Matter, spokesperson for Purdue Bands  Orchestra. This is the sixth anniversary of the event initiated in 2003.

 

This year the Purdue Symphony Orchestra will be joined on stage by the university’s newest group, the Purdue Philharmonic Orchestra which opens the concert with lively excerpts from Mozart’s “Jupiter Symphony” and Mendelssohn’s “Italian Symphony.”

 

King purposefully picks out classical works that create amusement and suspense.  “This concert is fun because it’s all about finding cool, new and interesting ways to share music with kids,” he says.

 

Two pieces on the concert – Mozart’s “Jupiter Symphony” and Franz Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony” performed by the Purdue Symphony Orchestra – were never performed in their composer’s lifetime. The Mendelssohn “Symphony No. 4” was written in a minor key which has the effect of making the music sound more solemn, sad, mysterious, or ominous than music in a major key.

 

Camille Saint-Saens’ “Danse Macabre,” also performed by the Purdue Symphony Orchestra, often pops up in films and TV shows. Most recently, it’s been used as background music in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Shrek the Third. Saint-Saens was inspired by an old French superstition which claims that the figure of Death appears at midnight on Halloween and plays a fiddle so the skeletons of the dead can dance until dawn.

 

During the costume parade, a variety of popular Halloween-related tunes will be performed and the concert will climax with John Williams’ title theme from hit film Star Wars.

 

The concert is sponsored by Purdue Bands & Orchestra which offers a series of jazz, concert band, orchestra and percussion events throughout the year.

 

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