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Ages: 5 & 7
Subscribers for: 2 Years
Date of Mum’s first ACO concert: 2009
Favourite ACO concert: The Four Seasons (2023), Total Immersion (2023), Abel Selaocoe
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“I’ve had a two-seat subscription for two years, with one child coming with me each time. I started taking them quite early. Josh was five and Freya is five now. So they are growing up with classical music, and are learning what to expect.”
Josh and Freya must be some of our youngest subscribers, encouraged to try the diverse range of repertoire, instruments and guest directors that their regular attendance at ACO concerts affords them.
“Some people are impressed when they see young kids, because it’s unusual having such young children in the concert hall,” their mother, Dorota, tells us. “But some can’t believe I take them to classical music.” The request for children to spend relatively long periods sitting still isn’t music to every parent’s ears.
But concert attendance is part of Dorota’s inspiring vision for bringing her children up with a sense of commitment, even to experiences that aren’t immediately easy. As well as classical concerts, the children experience the absolute, unbeatable highs along with the energy-sapping lows of weekly 5K runs through the family’s dedication to Parkrun.
“Parkrun is a regular commitment that you shouldn’t just wiggle out of,” Dorota tells us. “In a way, the ACO Subscription is the same commitment. We sign up, and trust the Orchestra to give us all these different experiences. We go along and are often surprised, and often delighted, by something magical.”
Concert attendance is part of mum, Dorota’s inspiring vision for bringing her children up with a sense of commitment.
Like the running, the concerts aren’t always easy. “With raising kids, there will be criticism no matter what you do. Some people will think I’m crazy taking them to ACO concerts, or for dragging them to 5K runs at Parkrun every Saturday morning, but we get these moments that, through challenges, turn out to be the happiest moments of their lives. It gives them pay-off for their hard work and commitment.
“It’s teaching kids that we do things in life, and even if some days we don’t feel like it, we still go,” she smiles.
Apart from the music, Dorota’s ACO outings are about the whole day, and the opportunity to dress up and spend one-on-one, quality time with her children.
“It’s a bonding experience. I just want them to experience lots of different things and be able to choose for themselves later in life,” she says. “It’s about exposure. It gives them so much if they can enjoy art, and fully submerge in the experience, and appreciate the moment.”
In terms of which children Dorota takes with her, it’s “who is in the right mood”, or dependent on the time of year. “The last time I took Josh, for example, was around his birthday,” she says. “So we had a bit of a day out, and went on a speed boat after the concert.”
On Mother’s Day, “it was a bit of a dilemma” for Dorota because when she asked Josh and Freya who would like to join her for Theremin & Beyond at the Opera House, they both wanted to go. “Usually I pick one of them and it’s easy!” They’re clearly becoming staunch fans.
The ACO is well-suited for an introduction to classical music because of the Orchestra’s size. “We’ve got to know the musicians and the children enjoy matching the photos of the musicians in the program with the musicians on stage,” Dorota says. Josh has a “big celebrity crush” on ACO Principal Viola Stef, and Freya loves to see the beautiful, old Golden Age instruments up close.
“The fact we sit in the front row makes it really special. We can see the performers in such amazing detail.”
Dorota believes live music offers a unique chance for children to connect to something visceral in front of them while also switching off – something rare in our digitally-connected, busy lives – so they can let the music simply wash over them.
“I’d like them to be quite open to music and to art, and to actually be able to sit down and tune in, and in a way, switch off and slow down, and appreciate that moment in time,” she says.
“The fact we sit in the front row makes it really special. We can see the performers in such amazing detail. We can see their facial expressions and their subtle reactions to unpredictable live moments and changes in the music. It’s the whole experience – it’s seeing it, and also feeling it.”
Dorota herself grew up with classical music, remembering setting a piece of music by Tchaikovsky as her alarm clock, so going to the ACO “feels like home”.
Tchaikovsky actually featured in one of Dorota’s all-time favourite ACO experiences: ACO Total Immersion.
“That was mind-blowing,” she says. “It was amazing to see the performers so close and sit among them. I was separated from Josh, and he was sitting on his own and loved it! He was six years old and felt so grown up. He got to sit near his favourite musician, Stef, and even got to take a photo with her afterwards, so he loved the whole thing!”
Another of Josh’s favourite concerts has been The Four Seasons with Joseph Tawadros and James Tawadros performing with Richard Tognetti and the Orchestra.
And Freya was “mesmerised” by South African cellist Abel Selaocoe recently:
“She loved the fact that we were all signing in the audience, and she loved the fact that there were different instruments. She was giggling and saying, ‘Mummy, I can’t believe you were singing!’ and couldn’t stop talking about it in the car on the way home. And she kept saying, ‘I want to go again!’”
Click here to discover ACO 2025, our 50th Anniversary Season.
