Music Maestro - Stories in Music: Casey at the Bat

$16.98 (CD) – www.magicmaestromusic.com

Reviewed by Gregory Keer

With DVD players taking over the backseats of many family vehicles, here's a piece of mobile entertainment that truly engages young imaginations. Casey at the Bat, the classic American poem about a fictional baseball hero who lets a whole town down, is recreated as an interactive CD that combines original symphonic music, narration, and other wonderful interactive elements. Composed by Stephen Simon and performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the music helps tell the story, much in the way Peter and the Wolf and the first "Stories in Music" offering -- Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel -- do. Yadu (Dr. Konrad Czynski) colorfully narrates the production.

As if that's not enough to grab kids' attention, there are tracks on the biographical background of the poet (Ernest Lawrence Thayer) and the Maestro (Simon), on how to follow the way music helps tell the story, and on how to perform music. Like any good teacher, the disc follows up all this instruction with a chance to hear to the production again to test the listener's new skills. Here is a marvelous CD for road trips that can inspire children to seek out more classical music and poetry.