THE GREAT PIECE IN THE NY TIMES!!!!!!!!!!!

Spare Times for Children for May 3-May 9 By LAUREL GRAEBER Published: May 2, 2013 Glen Roven thought he had a perfect title for his new children’s chamber concert series. “I once wanted to call it either I Hate Music or But It’s So Boring,” Mr. Roven said. “But I was talked out of that.” You can’t say he didn’t know his audience. Mr. Roven, a New York composer and conductor, was used to young people’s skepticism toward classical material. But after giving some informal “salons” at home for friends’ children, he has expanded his concept. The result is Classical Concerts for Classy Kids, which begins on Saturday at 54 Below and aims to whet young appetites for chamber music while also sating them with good food. Mr. Roven and the GPR Festival String Quartet (he’s artistic director of the GPR Records label), casually dressed, will give a demonstration exploring a single classical piece, to be followed by a three-course lunch. (Choices include hamburgers and ratatouille shepherd’s pie.) After dessert, they’ll return in formal attire to play the entire work for ears that, as Mr. Roven put it, “will be able to follow it as easily as a Lady Gaga pop song.” Mr. Roven’s choice for this concert, which he sees as a pilot for a series to start in the fall, is Mozart’s String Quartet No. 21 in D (K. 575), written in 1789 and the first of that composer’s “Prussian” quartets. “It was written for the king of Prussia,” he explained. “It’s fun to hear Mozart sucking up to the king with the cello parts he’d written, because the king was a cello player.” Mr. Roven said he also loves the ending: “The finale is just rip-roaring. It’s cowboy music.” Mr. Roven (above, with the violinists Kinga Augustyn, center, and Muneyoshi Takahashi) plans to discuss how Mozart developed the work. “We might say: ‘Here’s the main theme. Clap your hands when you hear it change.’ ” But he stressed that the event would not be what is often called an instrument petting zoo. “I don’t want to play show-and-tell,” he said, noting that the program is for children 7 and older. “I want them to hear classical music and say, ‘I get it.’ ” Or even, he imagined, “ ‘Oh, Mommy, can’t you tell the recapitulation from the exposition?’ ” (Saturday at 11:30 a.m., 54 Below, 254 West 54th Street, Manhattan, 646-476-3551, 54below.com; $65; $32.50 for children; including lunch, a nonalcoholic drink, tax and tip. Reservations advised.) LAUREL GRAEBER