Junior Proms
Naomi Crellin along with the Adelaide Youth Orchestra brings her show Junior Proms to the Adelaide Festival Centre’s Something On Saturdays winter entertainment program. Every Saturday during the winter kids of ages 1-12 and their families can choose from a list of fun live performances.
Junior Proms is a show filled with children’s songs that the kids can sing, dance and clap along to all with an orchestra. Playing on Saturday 25th August at 1:00pm and 3:00pm. Tickets are just $15 including a free craft activity.
The show’s creator Naomi Crellin answers a few questions for us at Hi Fi Way: The Pop Chronicles.
Junior Proms is a very interactive show. What can the audience expect when they come to see it? Junior Proms will feature some well-known children’s songs arranged in engaging ways with plenty of audience participation. There will be educational songs about music and lots of animal noises!
Are the children usually shy or do they get straight into the show right from the beginning?
About half of the children are into the full immersion from the beginning – like adults, the extroversion/introversion spread is fairly even! The other half don’t take long – it’s so much more fun to jump around and sing at the top of your lungs.
How did you come up with the concept of Junior Proms?
Adelaide Youth Orchestra runs such a wonderful program for young instrumentalists, and they wanted to engage children at an even younger age to increase the musical experience and encourage more children to be involved in music, both in the present and also into the future. I have often been told that I should audition for Playschool (which I’ve never gotten around to, nor had the courage to try!), so my inclusion, especially having been raised and musically educated in Adelaide, felt like a natural combination.
How do you go about selecting the songs for the show? Do you have some songs that are “must haves” in the show?
We had a list of about twenty-five songs my children (who are six and three) particularly enjoy. We then considered which have audience participation opportunities, which are Australian, which are broadly popular, and which we had time to squeeze in!
What is it like to have an orchestra as a part of the show?
The orchestra offers continual visual and aural delights to a young audience. Their sheer scale is hugely impressive, and the sound is so affecting when the audience gets to be as physically close as they do in this show. The fact that the orchestral musicians themselves are children (albeit older ones) also inspires the kids in the audience to choose an instrument (or five) for themselves, and to nag their parents for lessons. Even simple nursery rhymes take on a broader, more scintillating personality when played by over fifty instruments at once.
You are part of the acapella group The Idea of North. What is that like compared to performing in Junior Proms?
The Idea of North is used to performing for all ages, and due to our education program, we often find ourselves performing for school-aged children, which is my favourite audience demographic. The biggest difference is the extroverted enthusiasm shown by the youngest children (whom have yet to learn self-consciousness) and the amount of background noise they make!
What is more challenging performing in front of children or adults?
Each has its own challenges. Kids have a shorter sitting down and paying attention span, so our shows need to have more interaction and variety. But adults can be tougher to win over and are less in the moment than kids. Although they are vastly more patient!
Will you be performing any acapella numbers in Junior Proms?
As acappella means without instruments, and I am the only singer, it would be a very bare song, with just the melody! So, while the orchestra may perform a song or two without me, I won’t sing any a cappella solos unless they are completely spontaneous.
Interview by Anastasia Lambis
Join the fabulous Naomi Crellin from Idea of North and Adelaide Youth Orchestras for a delightfully entertaining collection of childhood songs and music. Junior Proms is part of our popular Something About Saturdays program for kids 1-12 years old. Tickets are just $15 including a free craft activity. More info at the Something About Saturdays website.