Inspiring young kids to pursue classical music is sort of like panning for gold, a lot of looking and hoping for a small fleck of the shiny stuff. The Calidore String Quartet, whose name is a contraction of California and de oro: of gold, are dedicated to music education as well as performing some of the more challenging string quartet rep. Wearing their educator hats at a UCSB Arts & Lecture outreach presentation for students at McKinley Elementary school seemed at first blush to be going above the kids’ heads. When it came time for questions from the students, one boy asked “What’s your favorite car?” which brought the no doubt incomprehensible reply that none of them have cars. All was not lost though: when asked how many played string instruments a lot of hands went up, so they were probably hitting the mark with some, finding a few flecks of gold in the crowd that may go on to shine brightly.
