Beat to the Draw : Debussy Trio Heads Off Boredom by Encouraging Kids to Draw to the Beat

How does music color feelings? How do feelings color music? What is musical color, and what is colorful music? And what on earth does electricity have to do with it?

Such questions will be addressed during the Debussy Trio’s “Musical Adventures” program Saturday morning at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, the last of this season’s Young Person’s Chamber Music Concerts.

Children will be invited on stage and provided with art supplies. It apparently doesn’t bother the three musicians to have a gaggle of kids drawing at their feet while they play. On the contrary:

“We do this because we like doing it,” said harpist Marcia Dickstein. “Sometimes we have the kids dance. Sometimes I bring along a folk harp and have one do some strumming. If they haven’t been there already, they come up on stage afterward. This is about breaking down barriers, not about having them sit there and ‘take it.’

“Adults tend to put this [attitude] on to the kids, that classical music is good for you, like healthy food, instead of that it’s fun, and that it’s theirs,” Dickstein said. “We’re not doing this for your parents; this is for you. But it’s also amazing how many adults come to these things--and how many adults want to draw!”

Dickstein, flutist Angela Wiegand and violist Keith Greene will play a sonata by the group’s namesake; “Tri Chairde” (Three Friends) by Ian Krouse; “A West African Rhapsody” by Roger Neill; a trio sonata by Telemann; a duo for flute and viola by Francois Devienne; and “Le Soleil Multicolore” by Jacques Bondon.

“We tie it all to art history so that there’s context,” said Dickstein, who founded the trio in 1987. “I don’t tell them what the music is about--they draw, and we see what they come up with. What’s interesting is that whether they talk about it or draw pictures, the kids all come up with similar things. The music evokes the same emotions.

“Then we tell them what the title is and whether the composer was writing from personal feelings that he had, or whether he was influenced by [events of] history going on around him.”

If the children’s feelings agree with the title or circumstances, that’s fine. If not, that’s fine too.

“If [they] feel emotion, but about something different, that’s not wrong in classical music,” she said.

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Dickstein is adjunct professor of harp at Cal State Long Beach. Wiegand is principal flutist with the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra. Greene performs with the Long Beach Symphony and Los Angeles Music Center Opera orchestras.

Together, they won the 1988 Carmel National Chamber Music Competition; in 1990 the group was named Young Artist of the Year by Musical America Magazine.

In 1994, on the center’s Chamber Music Series, the trio presented the premiere of “Twelve Days in the Shadow of a Miracle,” a commissioned work by jazz composer Lyle Mays of the Pat Metheny Group.

The trio recorded that and another commission, “Triple Concerto . . . night’s midsummer blaze” by Augusta Read Thomas, and they were recently released on the Sierra Classical label.

The ensemble has performed more than 500 concerts for inner-city and rural schoolchildren throughout the country in addition to its concerts for families and senior citizens.

“We try to put on a show based on classical music that grandparents and grandkids will enjoy,” Dickstein said. “It’s a little bit of stand-up comedy, but based on very serious stuff. There’s humor for adults and humor for kids.”

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Now about that electricity. . . .

“Besides the words, the difference between rap and classical chamber music is mostly that they have electric instruments,” Dickstein said. “Rap is chamber music too: They have to be tight; they theoretically have to practice to be good at what they’re doing.

“All music is color. I relate it to painting,” she said. “Before [Impressionism] they painted pictures, but they had different palettes. Same with composers. . . . The fact that Baroque composers didn’t have electricity means they saw things in a different light entirely.”

* The Debussy Trio presents “Musical Adventures,” a narrated concert of works in styles ranging from Baroque to contemporary, Saturday at Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 10 a.m. $4-$6. (714) 556-2787.