I got to see a performance of The Rose of Sonora this weekend. It is a concerto in five scenes performed by Holly Mulcahy and composed by George S. Clinton.  I had first written about it around 3 years ago. 

One of the things that piqued my interest was that the piece tells the story of a heist, jail break, ambush, and revenge carried out by a female outlaw in 19^th Century Territory of Arizona and had its own narrative and images meant to accompany the performance.

I was a little disappointed that the images weren’t used as part of the performance. That is likely because the composer was there to read each part live.

The composer did an interview with Symphony of the Rockies conductor, Devin Patrick Hughes, about his career. Brief explanation of Rose on Tiktok and longer interview here.

The Rose of Sonora was the last piece performed by the Symphony of the Rockies as part of a whole night of Western themed music. The program included music from The Magnificent Seven and The Good, The Bad, The Ugly; William Tell Overture, and “Hoedown” from Rodeo.

The whole orchestra was dressed in Western themed clothes. At one point 2/3 of the violin section was wearing their bandanas over their mouths. The conductor made a production of drawing his baton from a holster.

It should be noted that the concert was occurring in Denver on the night the Great Western Stock Show started. So it was all very much in theme.

It also bears mentioning that Holly grew up in greater Denver and got paid to perform with the Symphony of the Rockies as a teenager. During the Q&A after the concert a young violinist asked how Holly remained so calm and poised. Holly told her she would let us know in 20 years because not only did she perform before her friends and family, many of her teachers and mentors were in the audience that night so she felt a lot of pressure.

I overheard a lot of positive comments from people around me during Holly’s performance that weren’t made during the rest of the night so the piece seemed well-received.  During the Q&A I really wished there were a way to have gotten up and ask attendees what their thoughts were on having a bit of narration between movements since that doesn’t generally happen during orchestra performances.

The conductor had made some comments at the beginning of the evening suggesting Rose of Sonora would provide an opportunity to create a story in our minds. With the one-two sentence prompts provided at the start of each chapter, I wonder how vividly the story unfolded in each person’s mind’s eye as they listened to the music.

About a year ago Holly performed the Rose of Sonora on the other side of the state in Grand Junction, CO and apparently word of mouth saw a line around the block for the second night of performances.

As I drove home Saturday, I was wondering if that was a reaction to the quality of the piece or that the imagery/narration and topic made the experience accessible. Basically, was the audience for the second day aficionados or people who really want to try the orchestra experience but were intimidated and heard a great deal of the mystery was removed in this piece?

Thinking back to the post I made on Monday about storytelling notes next to visual art works helping people focus better on the work before them, would providing similar storytelling prompts with orchestra pieces help people enjoy the music more if they are able to provide their own mental video accompaniment? Many symphonies have started using video in conjunction with performances. But I wonder if people will feel the music is more relatable if they are creating their own narrative in response to an evocative prompt.

Some research how adults and children focus on visual art pieces in different ways provides some insight into how to write and present introductory and educational information to children. Not only for visual art pieces but things to call attention to with performances and other types of experience.

In an article Francesco Walker, Assistant Professor in Psychology, Leiden University, wrote for The Conversation, he talks about using eye tracking technology to see what children focus on when given different types of descriptions/prompts in advance.

Walker cites some past research which had found that children tend to focus on bright colors and bold shapes in paintings. While adults viewing the same work will call upon existing knowledge and information and orient on other elements like brush strokes.

Walker and his colleagues conducted their study tracking eye motions around three works at Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. They watched how children age 10-12 interacted with the paintings after they had been provided with existing adult oriented explanatory labels, playful storytelling labels, or no labels at all.

What they found was that children who had been provided adult oriented labels interacted with the paintings in the same way as children who had not been provided any labels at all. Whereas children provided with the playful spent more time engaging with the work and were focused on specific areas.

An example of the adult text:

The child oriented text for the same painting

The article provides heat maps showing where attention focused based on the three content scenarios.

Walker suggests the results of their study suggest that art education classes should shift from textbook based classroom lessons toward a more storytelling mode. He notes that art history students find it difficult to connect with the art when the information is transmitted in lectures or via text book.

And by the way, the two studies I linked to in the previous sentence were studies conducted with undergraduate students, not grade school students so a storytelling approach can positively impact everyone’s experience and engagement