The Philadelphia Orchestra: Peter and the Wolf

The Philadelphia Orchestra brings Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf to Marian Anderson Hall on Saturday, February 20, 2027. It's a morning performance, starting at 11:30 AM, and it's part of the orchestra's Family Discovery Series.

If you've never come across Peter and the Wolf, it's a musical tale that introduces the instruments of the orchestra through a story about a boy's adventure in the woods. The whole thing runs about 25 minutes, and the trick is that each character is assigned a different instrument: the strings represent Peter, a bassoon plays the grandfather, and horns take on the wolf. As the story unfolds, you hear the characters enter and leave the scene through their specific sounds, so you can follow the plot by ear as much as by the narration.

Narrator Michael Boudewyns will lead the storytelling, and the orchestra is billed as an introduction for listeners of all ages, so it works just as well for someone who's never seen a live orchestra as it does for someone who's been coming to the Kimmel Center for years. It's a short, focused piece—about a half hour of music—which makes it an easy one to bring kids to without worrying about them getting restless.

There's a bit more to the morning than just the concert, too: pre-concert activities open at 10:30 AM in Commonwealth Plaza, an hour before the music starts. The performance itself is at 11:30 AM at Marian Anderson Hall, inside The Kimmel Center at 300 S Broad St in Philadelphia.