Meredith Wins Tickets to Symphony

Mrs. Gansen and the 5th grade at South Hamilton went to the Fall Des Moines Symphony Concert on October 2. Following the concert students were invited to submit critiques of the performance. In January the Des Moines Symphony sent Meredith a letter which included: Congratulations! You have been selected as one of the winning Junior Critics for our Fall Youth Concert, featuring David Ott. We received thousands of critiques, and selected only twelve students to award. You seemed to put a lot of time and thought into your critique, and the Des Moines Symphony is pleased to award you with up to 3 FREE tickets to our Family Fun Concert.

The following is the critique submitted by Meredith:

Dvorak's piece called Slavonic Dance, was very exciting. It sounded very hard to play. When I listened to it, I felt like I was running through a meadow then stopped suddenly and started running again. This pattern was repeated throughout the piece. When it was done, I felt exhausted.

Mr. Ott told us about the three most important parts of making music. These are rhythm, harmony, and melody. It was fun and exciting to hear how a composer thinks up his music. I bet it would be difficult and maybe frustrating to come up with music for each instrument.

When I heard Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring by Bach, I felt like I was at a wedding. It felt royal because of all the trumpets. That was one of my favorite pieces.

Stravinsky's Infernal Dance is really exciting! Every time I heard certain chords it made me jump. It sounded like lightening and thunder. It sounded like a fairy tale. It made my mind run.

Symphony no. 3 by Beethoven was very calm and gentle, then it would get more exciting. It repeats this pattern. This was not one of my favorite songs.

Symphony no. 4 by Ott was exciting to wonder what was going to happen next! It was neat to see all the instruments play together and not make one mistake. The ending chord was very final. You could tell it was done.

Symphony no. 4 by Tschaikovsky was very perky! It sounded like someone could not wait to get where they were going. They were very eager and excited to get there.

Thank you for inviting me to see the orchestra. It was my first time to go to an orchestra and I really enjoyed it.

Mrs. Gansen noted that this is the 2nd year in a row that a South Hamilton student has been a winner in this contest. In last year's 5th grade class, Afton was selected as a recipient.