"How many of you have never been to a live symphony orchestra concert before?" asked the tall man on stage, and immediately a sea of hands waved back at him from the reaches of Symphony Hall's acre of seats.

"Oh, a lot of you", he said, not really surprised, however.

Then Henry Lewis proceeded to explain the makeup of an orchestra and the different types of instruments in its ranks, and to lead the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in several selections designed to interest the nearly 2,500 Essex County junior high school youngsters who had gathered in Newark for the last of this season's school concerts by the orchestra at Symphony Hall.



To illustrate the use of brass instruments in the full orchestra, for example, Lewis had the musicians play the popular William Tell Overture and the young audience, rather lively to start with, became physically involved with the music when familiar sections were played.

When the "Lone Ranger" segment came towards the last of the work, some small fry in the first few rows nearly danced in the aisles and when it was over the whole auditorium broke into screaming applause.

Then the kids took over in the sound-making department and raised a general excited din as they were dismissed by groups to the 60 buses which had brought them to the hall.

Later, a group of school officials and music educators gathered on stage for box lunches and to hear Lewis and the orchestra's new general manager, Benson E. Snyder, discuss their philosophies of attracting children to serious music.

The conductor was introduced as "Dr. Lewis, he's getting his fifth honorary doctorate this Spring."

Lewis then explained that his goals in the school concerts (the orchestra will do another this afternoon at Penns Grove) are simple and direct.

"I don't even try to teach any lessons about harmony or things like that," he said. "The whole goal is to convince them that the symphony has something to it they can relate and react to - all I want is to grab them at the emotional level for now.

"If only we can get them saying on the way out that they liked this or that, then we've convinced them that a concert is not something they would hate, as they probably felt before coming.

"There's plenty of time for music education later," said Lewis, "but the first battle is to get the kids to feel. They should be simply exposed and excited at first if we want to win them as future audiences - to begin with an educational approach would only turn them off.

"So all I'm really after is a basic, gut reaction. I'm sure that in every one of these school audiences there is at least one youngster whose life is changed because of hearing an orchestra in live performance, and that's enough.

"I know," Lewis continued, "When I was in seventh grade I heard a live band concert for the first time and even though I had been taking piano lessons since age four, something happened then that totally changed my life.

"I simply had to play after hearing those trumpets and I nearly drove the school officials crazy for a year until class space opened up for me to take a band course," he said.

It made one wonder whether an audience such as yesterday's assemblage of average-looking kids might have contained the Henry Lewis of another generation.

DIONNE WARWICK will appear in person with The Constellations, The Drinkard Ensemble, and others at the Patrolman Charles Cobbertt Benefit stage show at the Embassy Theater, in Orange, this Sunday (May 23) evening at 8.

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“Reach Back with One Hand and Pull Someone Else Up With You.”

– Charles C. Cobbertt

Explore more of the inspiring stories of Charles C. Cobbertt.