Baton Rouge Kids’ Orchestra: Putting music in the hands of children

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) – Over the laughs and shouts of kids leaving school, a symphony pours through the classroom doors at Magnolia Woods Elementary School. For the 20 or so school children in the Baton Rouge Kids’ Orchestra program here, it is day three with their new instruments.

Peeps and squeals ooze from the flute room. Inside, one instructor and four students are building a song, one note at a time. Next door, six second and third graders sit straddled across cellos. Some of the instruments are bigger than the musicians. They are learning how to hold their bow to coax just the right tone from the C-string. Down the hall, ten drummers practice keeping time with their instructor, and another four clarinetists are learning not to squeak while a room of trumpeters are learning to hear notes.

They all work at a feverish pace. The orchestra’s first concert is less than three months away.

“The problem with creating an orchestra,” says Jovan Zivkovic, artistic director for the Kids’ Orchestra, “is that you have to have a critical mass of students. You can’t create an orchestra out of six students.”

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