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GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP - Lara Guerrini, 8, tapped her feet and swung her arms, her head bouncing in time with the music.

But it wasn't Hannah Montana that captured her interest. It was composer Sergei Prokofiev's "A Summer Day."

Guerrini, along with Sophie Wolos and Miranda Muniz, both 9, and Jeremy Muniz, 12, attended the annual youth concert sponsored by the Bay-Atlantic Symphony at Richard Stockton College to hear a live orchestra play.

"We come every year," parent Stevee Wolos said. "We listen to classical music a lot."

Going to a classical music concert might not seem like a student's idea of playtime, but conductor Jed Gaylin and the Bay-Atlantic Symphony made the most of the word "play" for its 2008-09 youth program - explaining how musicians and composers play music, play with music and the audience gets to play along.

"A concert is not passive, it's very active," Gaylin told his young guests. "We play differently with an audience. You affect how we play by the way you listen."

"Let's Play" features the same theme and music as the adult concerts, with extra history and explanation added in for the students.

Gaylin talked about how the composer Prokofiev played with other composers' works and how he played with musical notes and speed. He also talked a bit about how it's the conductor's job as the leader to tell the musicians when and how to play.

But mostly he and the orchestra played.

"I'm not trying to get a big message across," Gaylin said after the performance. "I just want to show them the best music. If you play great music for young people, they are sometimes more open than adults. The music is so powerful, I don't want to detract from that. It should be seductive."

The orchestra has been offering annual youth concerts for more than a decade at Cumberland County College and Stockton. They used to charge for admission; but as school budgets got tighter and money for field trips disappeared, the orchestra comped the tickets. Two years ago, it began soliciting private sponsors to subsidize the cost. Now the concerts are free, and the symphony even has a few bus vouchers to help cover the transportation costs for school groups.

"The cost was such a barrier for many schools," said Paul Herron, executive director of the symphony.

Gaylin writes pre- and post-concert lesson plans for the concerts that are posted on the symphony's Web site. He asks at the concert whether teachers have done the lessons, and some have. He asks for their input after the concert to see how he can improve them.

Pinelands Regional Junior High School teacher Charlene Wilson used some of the lesson plans with her special education students, who watched videos about composers and wrote about Beethoven.

"Kids don't get a lot of exposure to music and the arts," she said. "When you first introduce it they say, "Yuck," but halfway through some will say they really enjoy it."

Cumberland Regional High School teacher Mary Dilks said the concert was an opportunity for students to hear live what they had studied in class. It also offered the chance for the students to visit a college. She said Gaylin had a good rapport with the young audience.

Gaylin said grades four through six are the ideal time to introduce classical music, but the younger the better. The audience ran the gamut from toddlers to teens. Some clearly enjoyed the event, others slumped in their seats looking bored. When a reporter approached a small group of high school students waiting for their bus after the concert, they denied having been there.

But Pinelands Regional eighth-grader Ashely Potterton was thrilled, especially with the piece played by French pianist Olivier Cangelosi, accompanied by the orchestra.

"I love the piano," she said. "And I liked it mixed with the orchestra. That was just awesome."

E-mail Diane D'Amico:

DDamico@pressofac.com

To learn more

For more information on

the symphony, including

the lesson plans, visit:

bayatlanticsymphony.org

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