Dear students and families:
May this symphony "from the New World" bring you peace and console. Czech composer Antonín Dvořák wrote this piece in 1893 while he was the director of the National Conservatory of Music of America (in New York City).
Dvořák was influenced not only by the music he had heard here (especially African-American and Native American) but also by the beauty he had seen when arriving in the United States. [In terms of "borrowing" melodies with no consent, in today's time that would have been seen/is cultural appropriation, but the late 1800s was a different context].
ACTIVITY SUGGESTION:
[K-3] Like many symphonies, this work is organized into four movements. While listening to a little bit of each, what do you imagine is happening? You can even get a piece of paper and draw the different "moods" of each movement.
[4-5] Can you recognize some of the instruments on this video? Try to create a visual "map" of when each instrument appears/solos in each movement.
OBS: I would absolutely love to see what you came up with! You can snap a pic of your drawings and/or maps and send it to jucantarelli@seattleschools.org
You can use these four excerpts as a guide:
From Movement I
From Movement II
From Movement III
From Movement IV
Here's one of my favorite renditions of it (full video):
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