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NSO Working Rehearsal and Q&A Session

Thu. Mar. 6, 2025 11a.m.

Event Information

  • Genre

    Performances for Young Audiences

An image of Kennedy Center Music Director and conductor Gianandrea Noseda. Noseda wears a black dress shirt against a dark background. He rests his head on top of his loosely clasped hands while looking off to the right.
NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Working Rehearsal and Q&A Session

Enjoy an insider’s look at our companies as they prepare onstage for performance.

This National Symphony Orchestra rehearsal with Music Director Gianandrea Noseda will give students a glimpse into the life of orchestral musicians and provide the opportunity to hear great music as it is being rehearsed for opening night. Discover Debussy’s delightful Images for orchestra, a series of musical postcards inspired by England, Spain, and France; and Ravel’s sultry slow-burn Boléro, with its sensuously hypnotic theme building to volcanic climax. Also on the program: Rota’s lively Trombone Concerto—performed by NSO Principal Trombone Craig Mulcahy—and Decisamente allegro by Nicola Campogrande, “one of the most interesting Italian composers of the young generation” (OperaWire). 

Featuring:

  • Nicola Campogrande: Decisamente allegro
  • Nino Rota: Trombone Concerto
  • Claude Debussy: Images
  • Maurice Ravel: Boléro

March 6, 2025

Concert Hall, recommended for grades 8-12

Estimated duration of the rehearsal is approximately two hours and 30 minutes with a 20-minute break. The Q&A will follow immediately after the rehearsal and run for approximately 30 minutes. Estimated duration of the rehearsal and Q&A together is approximately three hours.

Learning guide content for this event will be available approximately two weeks before the first performance.

Key Figures

Share your feedback!

We’re thrilled that you’ve joined us for a performance this season! We would like to hear from your students and you about the experience. After the performance, follow these steps to share feedback:

  1. Share the survey link with your students for them to complete .
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  3. If you’re a parent or caregiver, .

Each survey will take approximately five minutes to complete. The results will be used to inform future Kennedy Center Education program planning. Thank you in advance for sharing your valuable perspective!

Related Resources

Media Guide to the Orchestra

Listening to an orchestra can be a powerful experience. It can entertain you, tell you stories, make you laugh or cry, or take you away to faraway places. Knowing a few things about orchestras and the range of music they play can make it even better. Everything you need to get started is right here in this guide.

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Media Perfect Pitch

Take the field and learn the looks, sounds, history, and notable players of orchestral instruments from four eras—baroque, classical, romantic, and modern. Next, use the interactive audio mixer to choose your players and hear them perform together. Finally, test your musical knowledge with a fun baseball-style quiz.

Media Your Brain on Music

Music has the power to motivate and soothe, no doubt about it. But how and why does it affect us? Why do certain songs trigger excitement or make us grin? Why do others bring relaxation, tears, or send shivers down our spines?

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Collection Classical Music

Meet great composers, explore the vast musical world of the orchestra, study the science behind the instruments, and discover how classical music is anything but boring.

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Media Reach For The Moon

Just like President Kennedy had a vision for America, composers have visions of how they want their music to sound. For some, their musical mission is to explore a galaxy of stars and planets, moon shots, space walks, and galactic battles!

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Media Young People's Concerts

The National Symphony Orchestra's Young People's Concerts are full orchestra concerts for school groups, grades 3-8. Each season, these performance / demonstrations introduce students to the instruments and musicians of the orchestra, as well as musical concepts and curated selections from the orchestral repertoire that connect to educational themes.

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Kennedy Center Education 
Building the Future
of Arts Education

Professional development for educators. Summer intensives for young artists. Teaching artist guided activities. Performances for young audiences. Classroom lesson plans. Arts-focused digital media.

Kennedy Center Education offers a wide array of resources and experiences that inspire, excite, and empower students and young artists, plus the tools and connections to help educators incorporate the arts into classrooms of all types.

Our current teaching and learning priorities include:

Digital Resources Library

A robust collection of articles, videos, and podcasts that allow students of all ages to explore and learn about the arts online.

Three young people smiling and looking at a laptop computer screen

Current Topics in Arts Integration

Current approaches to arts integration in the classroom, inclusion, rigor, and adopting an arts integration approach at the school and district level.

A group of teens performing the musical, "In the Heights."

An asynchronous online course that invites educators and administrators to think about our students’ disabilities as social and cultural identities that enrich our classrooms and communities.

A boy with short brown hair wearing a hearing aid and glasses with a light blue wrist band and black t-shirt is drawing on a piece of paper with a pen he is holding in his left hand.

Kennedy Center Education

Generous support for educational programs at the Kennedy Center is provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

Gifts and grants to educational programs at the Kennedy Center are provided by The Paul M. Angell Family Foundation; Bank of America; Capital One; The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; Carnegie Corporation of New York; The Ednah Root Foundation; Harman Family Foundation; William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust; the Kimsey Endowment; The Kiplinger Foundation; Laird Norton Family Foundation; Lois and Richard England Family Foundation; Dr. Gary Mather and Ms. Christina Co Mather; The Markow Totevy Foundation; Dr. Gerald and Paula McNichols Foundation; The Morningstar Foundation; Myra and Leura Younker Endowment Fund; The Irene Pollin Audience Development and Community Engagement Initiatives;

Prince Charitable Trusts; Dr. Deborah Rose and Dr. Jan A. J. Stolwijk; Rosemary Kennedy Education Fund; The Embassy of the United Arab Emirates; The Victory Foundation; The Volgenau Foundation; Volkswagen Group of America; Jackie Washington; GRoW @ Annenberg and Gregory Annenberg Weingarten and Family; Wells Fargo; and generous contributors to the Abe Fortas Memorial Fund and by a major gift to the fund from the late Carolyn E. Agger, widow of Abe Fortas. Additional support is provided by the National Committee for the Performing Arts..

The content of these programs may have been developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education but does not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education. You should not assume endorsement by the federal government.