Jack and the Beanstalk

Narrator and Orchestra

Grade 5

10.5 minutes

Premiered December 19, 2010 by the Northern Virginia Manassas Symphony Orchestra in the Hylton Performing Arts Center, Manassas, VA

Listen to the Manchester Symphony Orchestra, Scott Humphries, conductor:

For several years, the Northern Virginia Manassas Symphony Orchestra has commissioned composers to write settings of children’s books for narrator and orchestra for its annual children’s concert.  In 2010, the orchestra decided instead to ask me to set an established fairy tale.  The first step was to locate a script, so I asked my mom to write it!  She did some internet research, read a few different versions of the story, but ultimately wrote the script herself and put her own spin on it.  The result is a fairly straightforward telling of the story, with my “movie score” accompanying the action.