SSO in the Classroom

The SSO has a long history of engaging in music education, both through our programs and through the reach of the incredible musicians who play in the orchestra.

With school music programs facing a time of unique challenges, we’re wanting to step up and find ways that your orchestra can be a resource during this time.

To adjust to the pandemic, the SSO is creating a wealth of online resources that are designed at growing literacy and awareness in music. As such we currently offer Meet the Musicians interview videos, the information from our online Beethoven Festival celebrating the composer’s 250th anniversary year, an online class From Bach to Bartok taught by Music Director Eric Paetkau, and more.

This fall we’re launching a number of exciting educational initiatives that could be used as classroom resources.

Watch SSO Concerts Anytime!
We’re launching our Digital Concert Stream which will house each and every one of our performances in the season as concert films streamed on demand. The SSO’s new Digital Concert Stream allows for classrooms to watch performances at anytime. The concert films feature behind the scenes footage, interviews with musicians, and much more. Supplemental material is available for most performances, including a video discussion of the program with each conductor.

As well we have past performances available upon request, including Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.

Online Classes
After the success of our first online class in spring 2019 (From Bach to Bartok with Eric Paetkau, available on request), we are launching a series of online classes taking place throughout the year. In the fall we have Saskatoon composer Kendra Harder hosting Musical Herstory: a history of composers who happened to be women, in November Eric Paetkau presents Isn’t It Romantic: the big romantic hits, and in January of 2021 we launch It Ain’t Over: An Operatic Crash Course in partnership with Saskatoon Opera.
Class videos are available to watch at any time and can progress at any speed. Engagement with course hosts is available upon request.

Kids Show
2020 marks Beethoven’s 250th birthday, and we’re thrilled to present the film of our kids show Little Ludwig. This concert was created as part of our SaskTel Symphony in Schools tour – each year more than 10,000 students get to hear the SSO life thanks to the support of SaskTel.
The 30 minute film follows the life, talents, and challenges of Ludwig van Beethoven from childhood through his musical successes, his loss of hearing, and his lasting legacy. The video is available to watch on demand, and features the musicians of the SSO’s Chamber Ensemble and Maestro Eric Paetkau narrating. The show was the concept of SSO Principal Bassoon Stephanie Unverricht, and features artwork by Saskatoon educator Peter Cowan.

An educational package is available to compliment the performance.

Another children’s show will be launched online in Spring 2021.

Educational videos
A series of videos coming out in fall of 2020 that explore all sorts of musical ideas. Find out how a piano works, 12 things you never wanted to know about the oboe, the rhythms that fiddlers rely on, and how to write your first rap.

Our goal is to create an ever growing set of videos that help everyone explore music making from its most simple concepts to its most challenging excerpts.

Meet the Musicians in Your Neighbourhood
In spring 2020, Eric Paetkau hosted online interviews with a number of SSO and Saskatoon musicians. These are all available to watch in our online archive (available upon request), and we’ll be launching a new series of Meet the Musicians in Your Neighbourhood that also allows schools to book specific musicians to have for online interviews with classrooms.

And More…
We have a ton of ideas of educational programming we are considering, and we’re open to ideas! Maybe students would like to hear about how members of the orchestra balance careers in both music and other professions? Or get a chance to talk to a professional artist who grew up right here on the prairies who’s gone on to perform around the world? Maybe your students would benefit from hearing about the business of music?  We’d love to find ways to help connect students to ideas.

If you’d like to get more information about the resources we’re making available, please fill out our form:

Music Education Programming

 

 

 

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