Symphony to give Sparta High School students a history lesson

Sparta - Sparta High School seniors enrolled in the advanced placement “modern European history” will go to the symphony to gain an understanding of the tense political scene as Europe teetered on the brink of world war in the late 1930s. The school has begun a partnership with the American Symphony Orchestra this year in a program designed to introduce high school students to the world of symphonic and orchestral music. Based in Lincoln Center, the American Symphony performs thematically organized concerts at Avery Fisher Hall, linking music to literature, politics, and history. With its bold programming, the American Symphony Orchestra creates thematic evenings comprised of interesting and rarely performed compositions. Sparta students joined fellow high school students from Mahwah, Emerson and Verona Jan. 29 to explore how symphonic music can enhance their history courses. Students analyzed Romantic-era music with Robert Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri. In an April program titled, “The Gathering Storm,” students will examine the foreboding quality of Frank Bridge’s Oration for Cello and Orchestra and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 4 as an echo of the mood in England as Nazi Germany’s shadow stretched across Eastern Europe. The program will conclude for the year in June with a performance examining the “Don Juan” character in literature and music with two one-act operas by Russian composers. The American Symphony Orchestra provides tickets and preparation materials free of charge to all participants. Sparta teachers hope the program will help students listen to music with an active and engaged ear and acquire an appreciation of great music as an essential and vibrant component of the culture in which they live as well as the history they study. For more information on the program, call 973-729-6191, ext 416.