“It’s like a chicken that makes music.” A five-year-old’s reaction to a musical instrument—a bagpipe, in this case—is often visceral and honest and as yet unfettered by etiquette or training. Curiosity about music is natural, and if a child’s musical journey begins early enough, and in an environment that encourages originality and creativity, a lifelong bond develops.
Exposing young listeners to a variety of musical instruments, performers, and genres and allowing them to form their own interpretations of the experience are some of the goals of March Music Days Junior, an annual festival organized with backing from the America for Bulgaria Foundation. The younger sibling of the internationally famous March Music Days festival in Ruse, Junior seeks to dispel the notion that musical events are for stiff-backed adults who express disapproval at any display of emotion or poorly timed clapping. The festival organizers’ mission is to raise a new generation of music lovers through informal, play-driven contact with musicians and their art.
The fourth edition of the festival this March featured twelve concerts and workshops for listeners aged 2 to 18 years, including the now-traditional musical workshops at several schools. These allowed students to become acquainted with the smooth sound and versatility of the saxophone.
The festival’s youngest participants were introduced to the family of woodwind instruments through playful performances of famous classical pieces. Preteens got a taste of the music of the great twentieth-century American composers George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein, while renowned percussionists introduced young adults to popular ragtime tunes from across the Atlantic.
The festival will end on a high note—with a performance on April 1 of the popular children’s musical The Merry Town Musicians by Alexander Vladigerov, the father of the Bulgarian musical.
More than 3,500 children and their families attend the festival every year, and approximately half a million people watch the festival events on TV.
