Cartoon instruments surrounding sheet music on music stand

Digital Concert: Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra

A concert performance of Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra introduces and showcases each instrument. Backstage footage takes you behind the scenes to experience the teamwork needed to bring orchestral music to life.

Learning Objectives

Students will…

  • Recognize orchestral instruments by sight and sound.
  • Manipulate musical ideas in different ways to create variations in a theme and variations form.

Prepare students for the concert and extend learning afterwards with lesson plans and activity ideas.

Familiarize students with orchestral families as you challenge them to aurally identify instruments while moving expressively to Britten’s music.

Listening for Orchestral Families

Explore theme and variations form by composing variations using body percussion.

Body Percussion Theme and Variations

Older students can compose a variation on Britten’s theme using pre-determined elements in a Google slide deck.

Composing Theme and Variations

Focus students’ attention by following along with a listening map of Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.

Listening Map

Post-Concert Survey

After watching this program with your students, please take five minutes to complete the Teacher Survey. The SLSO needs your feedback to share with funders the impact these programs have in classrooms. And the SLSO relies on your input as we create new programs that meet teachers’ needs. Insight from teachers like you is our most valuable resource. 

This survey should take less than five minutes to complete. You are encouraged to complete this survey for each digital program you use in your classroom.

Teacher Survey

SLSO education programs are presented by:

Steward Family Foundation logo
World Wide Technology

This digital education program is supported in part by generous grants from:

The Berges Family Foundation
The Dana Brown Charitable Trust, U.S. Bank, Trustee
Fletcher Jones Foundation

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