Day 3 of Aspen Music Festival and School Education Outreach Director Debby Barnekow and young composer Andrew Norman's musical odyssey to Roaring Fork Valley schools.

In our second visit to the Aspen High IB program we added student Nick Holloran from Basalt who had the morning free (I don't remember this in my high school days!). An accomplished pianist (he participated in the PALS program this summer), Nick began composing this summer. Normally quiet, he eagerly contributed. We looked at sketches that Andrew assigned the IB kids using only 5 pitches. Of course, each treated the material very differently and creatively. Since they are just beginning to compose, it was very helpful to have not just Andrew's comments but each other's as well.

The afternoon took us to Aspen Elementary, our other 'adopted' school. They, too, loved the 'verb' piece and enjoyed getting to make a sound piece with the made-up sounds. ... and everyone wanted to conduct it! Both Andrew and I were pleasantly surprised at their listening skills. The video for them was more abstract than it was for the high school students but that was somewhat expected. The comments ranged from "... this is SO weird" to " ... what IS that?"!