The Belgrade Philharmonic held two concerts for the children of Valjevo on Friday, January 10. The local Cultural Center’s Music Hall was packed with cheerful little kids who enjoyed our orchestra’s diverse program.

The first concert was for babies from 0-24 months old, who listened to their first concert of classical music. This was our orchestra’s most popular program in Valjevo as the toddlers played and tapped their feet to the most famous tunes of music literature performed by the Belgrade Philharmonic. As with the Belgrade concerts, a large play mat was laid in front of the orchestra so that the babies could move around and enjoy the music, and there were even some little “conductors.”

For the school kids our orchestra later performed a program called “The Witch and Maestro,” an exciting and surprise-filled story about a village with its strange inhabitants and a little witch who loved music and the violin. While the orchestra evoked this story with music, the narrators were philharmonic musicians Slavica Perić and Tamara Marinković-Tomić. In addition to entertaining our young audience, they also answered questions and explained all the details of the symphony orchestra. Both concerts were conducted by Ivan Markovic.