We did a special concert this morning - special, both in that it was outside our normal offerings, and in the kind of concert it was.

Odin Rathnam (HSO Concertmaster) and I did a small chamber music program for autistic children at the Capital Area Intermediate Unit. There were about 25 kids, ranging from very high to very low functioning autistic, along with some family members and therapists.

The idea for this concert (as well as sponsorship) came from Marilynn Kanenson, who had sponsored the Stuart & Friends concert earlier in the week. At last years S&F young person's concert, there were a handful of autistic children in the audience, who were noisy in their appreciation of the music. This didn't really affect us on stage, but it certainly was a distraction for the other students there. After the concert, Marilynn and I discussed the prospect of doing a designated program for autistic and other challenged children.

Among the many extreme challenges that parents of autistics face is finding activities with comfortable environments for their children. We wanted to create a thoroughly friendly environment for the kids, one in which they would feel comfortable expressing themselves - physically and even audibly - during the performance, without fear of shushing or curious (or even angry) stares.

Interestingly, the group this morning was extremely engaged, and thoroughly polite. There were one or two spontaneous vocal outbursts from a couple of the lower functioning children, but even they listened attentively.

Two vignettes:

1) There was one boy, I'd guess about 11 years old, who started out the concert with his sweatshirt hood up and his fingers in his ears. As the concert progressed, he became quite engaged (yes, the hood came down), and ended up participating in discussion more than any of the others, asking some very good questions as well.

2) Another boy, a couple of years older, and not nearly as highly functioning, listened intently for the whole show. At the end, he made a beeline to Odin and his violin. Odin is great with kids, and spent a good five minutes with this one child, showing him how to rosin his bow, allowing him to play some sounds on the fiddle, and letting him help put the instrument and music away. The boy then came to the piano and his therapist asked him to tell me what they had learned about in music class that week. He told me "ostinato" and proceeded to play a simple ostinato pattern on the piano's black keys, and in perfect rhythm!

We don't know a lot about the workings of these young minds, or how music can benefit young people on the autism spectrum. But it is absolutely clear to me that the children who heard us play can certainly appreciate the concert experience, possibly in an even greater way than more "mainstream" kids. Our mission as musicians should be to bring great music to the widest range of audience possible, and in environments in which they feel able to enjoy the experience. As such, we should be doing more of what we did today.