This weekend, October 17-18, Carnegie Hall celebrates families with an interactive Fall Family Weekend in the Resnick Education Wing. During this free musical extravaganza, with activities ongoing from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. each day, kids and grownups alike can participate in songwriting workshops, create and play their own instruments, join in sing-alongs, listen to musical stories, and explore a digital music playground. Both days will also feature performances in the Weill Music Room by Carnegie Kids performers Sbongiseni Duma at 11:00 a.m., Elizabeth Mitchell and You Are My Flower at 12:30 p.m., and Shine and the Moonbeams at 2:00 p.m. Please note: reservations for the Fall Family Weekend are currently full, but additional guests will be admitted as capacity allows via a standby line.
Carnegie Hall hosted its first-ever Family Weekend event on Sunday, September 21, 2014. This historic occasion marked the public opening of the Resnick Education Wing, the inspirational home for Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute (WMI), with 24 state-of-the-art spaces dedicated to music education atop Carnegie Hall. A Spring Family Weekend will be offered on Saturday and Sunday, May 21-22, 2016, with details to be announced.
In addition to the Family Weekend events, WMI presents free, interactive Carnegie Kids concerts in the Resnick Education Wing throughout the year for children ages 3-6, beginning on November 15. Entering its 20th anniversary season, Carnegie Kids performances will give young music lovers the opportunity to sing and dance along with Songs for Unusual Creatures, Little Big Tiny featuring Emily Eagen and
Spiff Wiegand, Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem, Falu and Shine and the Moonbeams, as well as learn about New York City's diverse musical and cultural traditions through My City, My Song concerts featuring Magda Giannikou, Falu, Yacouba Sissoko, Bobby Sanabria,
Brianna Thomas, and Jen Shyu.
The 2015-2016 season also features two large orchestral concerts in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage designed especially for families. On Sunday, December 20 at 3:00 p.m.,
Steven Reineke and The New York Pops perform A Charlie Brown Christmas in a holiday celebration of the 50th anniversary of
Charles M. Schulz's iconic TV classic. Peanuts characters come to life through special choreography performed by dancers from New York Theatre Ballet and young actors from TADA! Youth Theater.
John Bolton narrates the heart-warming story, underscored by the music of Vince Guaraldi, performed by The New York Pops and Essential Voices USA.
On Sunday, April 10, 2016 at 3:00 p.m., conductor Rossen Milanov and the Orchestra of
St. Luke's perform two new children's works that tell stories through music. Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw examines the nature of love and friendship with the world premiere of her
Carnegie Hall-commissioned work The Mountain That Loved a Bird, based on the 1985 children's book by Alice McLerran, and composer Robert Xavier Rodriguez brings to life "a romance in lower mathematics" with The Dot and the Line, based on the 1963 book by
Norton Juster, which was later turned into an Academy Award-winning short by famed animator
Chuck Jones. Rodriguez's work is a co-commission by
Carnegie Hall and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and is receiving its New York premiere at this concert. Shaw's work will receive its world premiere and was commissioned by
Carnegie Hall for its 125 Commissions Project-celebrating
Carnegie Hall's 125th anniversary-in which 125 new works by established and emerging composers will be performed over the next five seasons.
