RSO musicians work with local French

On Tuesday, Grade 5 and 6 students from École Ducharme and École St. Margaret were presented with a musical treat.
Teaching musicians (and married couple) Lisa Simmermon and Brian Johnson, both members of the Regina Symphony Orchestra (RSO), performed at École Ducharme as part of the Music Alive Program.
Though the couple has performed the same presentation numerous times, this was the first time presenting it in French.
“We’ve got the English one memorized, but memorizing it in French is another beast,” said Simmermon with a laugh.
During the first phase of the program, Simmermon and Johnson toured for three years to schools all across the province. From there, they chose 36 schools to visit once a year for three years. The pair chose to work with kids in schools that don’t actually have music teachers.
“In many schools across the province, classroom teachers are expected to cover the music curriculum and that’s incredibly challenging to do,” said Simmermon.
“So, our purpose is to try and cover a lot of the curriculum in one afternoon.”
Using a violin and marimba, Johnson, the RSO’s principal second violin, and Simmermon, the RSO’s principal timpani, played some tunes by Mozart for their young audience.
Their presentation was geared to work with this year’s music teacher resource kit, Allez Mozart, put together by the National Art Centre in Ottawa.
Johnson and Simmermon crammed as many topics as they could into their afternoon session, including sections of the orchestra, the history of Mozart, rhythm and composition. Later, Simmermon handed out a variety of percussion instruments to the students and invited them to play along with them.