COURTLAND
On Tuesday morning, area elementary school students were treated to some classical music, and one child said it was like listening to the scores from his favorite movies.

“It was good,” said Capron Elementary fourth-grader Brennon Mahon, 10. “All of that music — I’m used to listening to it in the movies, so that was really cool.”

And he wasn’t the only one excited about the Virginia Symphony Orchestra coming to Southampton High School to put on a performance for area elementary school students. SHS Principal Allene Atkinson was equally excited it.

“I love it,” she said. “I absolutely love it. It’s great having all the kids here from both school systems.”

Elementary students from both Franklin City and Southampton County public school divisions were invited to attend. The children weren’t the only ones, though.

“My teenagers also got to watch it,” Atkinson said. “My band people were able to watch it during the first show.”

S.P. Morton Elementary Principal Jason Chandler said he was glad to accept the invitation.

“Everybody was well behaved and it was a good experience for them,” he said of his students. “It was my first time seeing them, and I thought it was very well done. I enjoyed their program showing how instruments and music have progressed over history.”

While she normally listens to gospel music, SPM third-grader Kalaya Richards-Thomas, 8, said she enjoyed the new experience. Her favorite instrument was the cello.

“It was big, and I liked the sound that it made,” she said. “It was different, but I liked the music.”

Richards-Thomas’s favorite part of the show, however, was the end, Beatbox, where the conductor asked the students to play along.

“I liked it when I had to do the kick part,” she said, as one group of students was asked to say ‘boots, kick’ to the rhythm of the instruments on stage.

SPM third-grader Alanna Boone, 8, said it was peaceful, as did her classmates Arianna Edwards, 8, and Taniya Artis, 9.

“The rhythm was peaceful,” said Boone, who had never been to anything like that. “I liked the second song the best. It was the most peaceful.”

“The way it sounded,” Edwards added, “it was peaceful. The harp was my favorite.”

“The harp is what made it sound peaceful,” Artis theorized. “That was my favorite part of the show, when the harp was first played.”

Artis normally listens to R&B.

“The violin and the cello sound different from R&B,” she said. “And there is no singing, but I liked it and I’d come back next year.”

S.P. Morton third-grade reading teacher Amy Mesiti said the children are young, but they enjoyed it.

“I definitely think that they were not expecting this,” she said. “But they enjoyed it. It was nice to expose them to something different. My class particularly liked interacting with them at the end.”

Capron Elementary fourth-grader Tyesha Walters, 10, said she normally listens to rock music, but that she enjoyed this.

“I liked the Beethoven song they did,” she said. “He is my favorite.”

Nottoway Elementary Principal Chris Tsitsera said the Virginia Symphony’s show keeps getting better.

“Last year they had a science theme, and this year we got to go through history,” he said. “It always amazes me how they are able to keep it different. They had amazing energy.”

More importantly, however, is the impact on the students, Tsitsera said.

“For some, this may be the only experience they get with this kind of music,” he said. “For others, it may be the experience that opens it all up and gets them into music. It shows them the end point for all of the music classes they have been going through.”