String quintet eases kids into a classical groove

“There’s a reason it’s so beloved -- because it’s so cool.”

David Young, principal bass for the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and founder of the L.A.-based String Family Players, is talking about classical music. His string quintet has been turning children on to it since 1988.

The group’s listen-and-play show, “All Strings Considered,” a free event for those ages 10 and younger and their parents, will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday in the Multipurpose Room on the Help Group campus in Culver City.

“We’ve got everything from our arrangement of the theme from ‘The Simpsons’ to music that will be familiar to the concert-goer,” Young said. “But it’s fun to think we might be introducing this music to people for the first time.”

“All Strings Considered” eases young people into a classical groove with pop and TV themes, then brings traditional repertoire into the mix. Interactive play helps identify the characteristic sound of each instrument and gets audiences cozy with music that has a reputation for wearing formal clothes.

One listening game asks children to count how many times they hear a certain melodic fragment played during a piece.

Young and his group have as much fun during the shows as their audience, he said, because it takes them “out of their ivory tower and into the real world. It enriches our lives as working musicians.”

All of the String Family Players -- Young (double bass), Nancy Roth and Sharon Harmon (violins), Lynn Grants (viola) and Maurice Grants (cello) -- are pros, veterans of film and TV soundtracks and such groups as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

They’re also longtime Music Center Education Division artists who bring their interactive stringed-instrument program to as many as 50 schools a year.

“If it’s good music, the kids respond to it,” Young said. “It doesn’t matter when it was written or why. If it’s powerful, they respond. And I love seeing that happen over and over again. The old stuff that has stood the test of time still stands the test of time. The kids get it.”

Information: (310) 253-5716 or www.culvercity.org.

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-- Lynne Heffley