The Friendship Farm is the first of a set of works commissioned for the Participated Symphonic Concerts produced by Foco Musical for the school and pre-school population. Using the strategy of participating in live music listening, preparing children for these concerts requires prior classroom work, providing unique moments of complicity between the audience and the stage, the effects of which have been confirmed in recent studies to result in truly significant learning and a appropriation of above-average knowledge compared to traditional approaches. This work in the classroom means that the responsibility for the construction of the extra-musical vehicle is faced with the same depth with which we look at musical conception and with which we outline our goals in the field of developing musical skills. Thus, as a starting point for the creation of new works for the activity of the Didactic Orchestra, Foco Musical seeks to be more careful in the selection of themes for the narratives to work. Solidarity and tolerance are the values worked in The Friendship Farm , through the moving story of an Elephant that is rejected by other animals for being different!
An Elephant seeks shelter from the storm inside a farm where all the other animals have taken shelter. Its peculiarity – its size, its color, its shape … – means that it is not very well received among farm animals … It is a symphonic fable where the characters are animals represented by instruments of the orchestra. The message of implicit solidarity focuses on the right to be different.
With music by Jorge Salgueiro and a poem by João Aguiar, Friendship Song has become a classic, being already one of the most well-known and reproduced songs in the Portuguese school universe.
music and history Jorge Salgueiro
poem João Aguiar
interpretation Didactical Orchestra of Foco Musical
edition Focus Musical & Library Municipal of Lisbon