Saturday, January 14, 2006 10:06 PM EST

'Jack and the Beanstalk' Displays First-rate Talent

By Arlene Bachanov
Daily Telegram Special Writer

ADRIAN - Any parent who's ever read his or her children a story knows there are certain challenges in the process. How do you make the story fun? How do you get them to use their imaginations and picture the tale as it's being told? And how do you hold their interest until the end?

Now think of having to use music to do it.

That's the task Betsy and Michael Lackey faced in creating a new telling of "Jack and the Beanstalk" for its world premiere with the Adrian Symphony Orchestra this past Saturday. And with Betsy composing the music and Michael preparing the narration, the duo put together a piece that met those challenges fantastically. It tells the story in a very creative way and, at a bit more than half an hour of actual music, seems to be the right length for children to sit through.

With "Jack and the Beanstalk," Betsy Lackey has created a work that enriches the actual story perfectly. Not only is her music complex and rich, but her ear for what instruments would work best to advance a story is first-rate and she uses that talent here with excellent results. For this being her first crack at orchestration, it's impossible to think of one place where she could have done it any better.

For one thing, she does a terrific job of evoking the images of the story to help listeners "see" the action in their minds. The cow and the giants and the goose all sound, through the music, exactly as they should. The beanstalk grows just as one would imagine, with more and more instruments and more and more sound as the plant gets larger and larger. The piece she wrote for the magic harp is exactly as beautiful and mesmerizing as it's supposed to be.

She also captures the emotions of the story - fear and sadness and anticipation and triumph - wonderfully in her writing, which is an especially tough thing to do.

Writing the music at the same time as Michael was working on the narration allowed the couple to create a piece that grew together very well. The music and the story end up weaving together very seamlessly, and things happen in the music just as they're happening in the narration in a very fluid way.

As far as that narration is concerned, Michael not only put together a telling of the story that was fun and interesting, but his background as an actor meant he could tell the tale in a way that was fun for the children in the audience and mostly held their interest, especially for the children who were sitting up front close to the action. Through facial expressions, pacing, and even an accent for the giant's wife that was particularly great fun to hear, he created a very rich version of the familiar tale.

In all respects, the Lackeys have written a work that deserves a much wider audience. Any orchestra looking for a new way to introduce children to classical music should put this piece in its season.

>From the standpoint of the performance itself, the ASO, with music director John Dodson conducting, did a fine job of bringing the music to life. And the many "kid-friendly" aspects of the concert, from having children's artwork of the story on display, to allowing them to sit up front for the music, to having a library display focusing on "Jack and the Beanstalk" books on hand, were all nice touches.

The fact that the Adrian Symphony takes very seriously the educational side of its mission to the community by doing concerts such as this for children is certainly to be commended. At the same time, the importance of what happened Saturday from a bigger-picture standpoint shouldn't be missed: that the ASO presented a world-premiere concert of a piece written by a local composer.

Of course it's not the first time this has happened, and the most recent example prior to this actually also involves the Lackeys, with their symphonic work "Frankenstein." But, really, that fact only makes the story of what the arts in Adrian are all about just that much more remarkable.