The Score | It’s Time for Music

For the past seven years, Kentucky’s Paducah Symphony Orchestra and the McCracken County Library have been making sure children don’t miss the chance to learn about Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. The orchestra and library have developed Musical Story Time programs about those three composers for elementary- and intermediate-school students. Storytellers and musicians collaborate for 50-minute programs with small groups of kindergarten-through-fifth-graders from local public, private, and home schools, and students receive free books about the composers. Interactive stories include history and music, with connections to art, math, theater, dance, social studies, drama, and science, with children participating using puppets, dancing, marking time to music, and portraying eighteenth-century characters. The project is operated by the Paducah Symphony’s education committee and is supported by donors and volunteers. More than 5,300 students and 300 teachers participate in Musical Story Time annually, and 19,600 books have been given to local children since 2012.