1st concert at Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra

Date: 4.30pm, Sunday 5 Apr 09

Orchestra: Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra

Concert: A Clown's Guide to the Orchestra

Clownductor: Melvyn Tix

Jared's Yamaha Music School teacher encourages us to take our children for concert. We should expose them to music and musical instruments and to teach children the value of live music as nothing like seeing a live musical show.

Hubby and I used to be subscribers to Dewan Filharmonik Petronas (DFP), situated at the heart of Petronas Twin Towers. We decided to take Jared to MPO's Family Fun Day concert, A Clown's Guide to the Orchestra. This light-hearted themed concert provides a better understanding, as well as an opportunity to interact with the music and musicians.

Jared and his very first live classical music concert.

Jared in DFP's box office.

Outside the concert hall, before the concert.

This concert was lead by clownductor, MELVIN Tix, whose real name is Petter Vabog. He was a professional Scandinavian horn player before becoming a “clownductor”. He started as a clown in 1981, with his first children’s concert in 1984.

He has performed this concert for almost 25 years and the great thing is he really know how to get children interested in classical music. He was the conductor who became a clown. Since children cant stay focus for a long time, Vabog kept the pace fast and fun as Melvin, with lots of variation in the show to keep the children amused and make sure they can keep concentrating.

He started off the concert with a lively introduction to the different sections of the orchestra.

Impressively, Petter is also a balloon-making genius. He did a few balloon shapes and some juggling and then a few minutes of music and go back to some magic and some more music.

During the show, he also performed brass solos on a mini trumpet, trombone, piccolo horn, the xylophone and a hose with a mouthpiece and a funnel, as well as conduct the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.

MPO transform themselves into weird and wonderful animals with the piece "Old MacDonald had a Farm".

He got the children to stand up and sit down and even conducted the orchestra.

There were lots of laughter in the concert hall. The concert lasted about an hour without intervals. Jared enjoyed the concert and I'm glad that the concert had education elements in it too.

After the concert, we walked around KLCC. There was F1 Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix 2009 at the Concourse of KLCC.

BMW cars were on displayed too. Nice car!