LEWISTON — Fingernails plucked guitar strings. A violin bow scraped over its strings and knuckles rapped against the body of a polished, classical guitar.

But it was the plucking sound — in a particularly dramatic moment of “Duo Sonidos,” an exquisite 30-minute set — that spawned giggles among the 100 or so fourth-graders in the audience at Bates College’s Olin Arts Center on Wednesday.

Not that anyone minded.

The 9- and 10-year-olds were instructed by the musicians to listen, think and feel. Here, there could be no wrong responses.

“Nobody tells you what to think or what to listen for,” violinist William Knuth said. “That’s part of the fun of classical music.”

The Boston-based duo played flamenco and tango music, a lullaby and a folk song. When they were finished, an instructor from the Bates Museum of Art took over, using a slide show to introduce the children to such terms as “realism” and “negative space.”

When she was done, so was “Rollin’ to Olin.”

The three-week program on consecutive Wednesdays was meant to give the fourth-graders at Lewiston’s Geiger Elementary School a small sample of the arts.

“I know that many of the children just don’t experience any of this,” teacher Carmen Dufresne said. She ought to know.

For 18 years, as a teacher at Pettingill Elementary School in Lewiston, she would walk kids the two blocks to Bates every Tuesday for the college’s “Noonday Concerts.”

The students saw a wide variety of musical styles and instruments. Then, they’d return to her class and write about what they learned or experienced.

The music mattered to them, Dufresne said.

Then, her school closed. When Geiger Elementary opened in the fall of 2008, she and her students were too far from Bates to walk and busing was too expensive. 

But at the beginning of the year, Anthony Shostak, the curator of education at the Bates Museum of Art, found some money. He convinced insurer Liberty Mutual to donate $1,000 to bus the kids from Geiger Elementary to Bates for three sessions.

“We hope to be able to secure support to allow for an additional three to six sessions this winter and spring,” Shostak said Wednesday.

He is uncertain where that support will come from.

The loss is not only to the students. Bates likes having the children visit, said Seth Warner, who manages the arts center. And for the artists, it’s a chance to play for a particularly demanding crowd.

If you’re not interesting, the kids won’t be as polite as classical music’s often-subdued adult audience, said Warner, a parent.

“You actually have to make your case,” he said.

The musicians understood that.

Knuth and his music partner, guitarist Adam Levin, said they were both moved as kids by watching orchestras or attending special youth-oriented musical events.

Levin grew up in Chicago’s rich arts community and is the son of a classical guitarist.

Knuth grew up in Utica, N.Y., and remembers attending a special violin class with legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman in nearby Syracuse. 

He remembers hearing violin sounds he thought were impossible. And when he got a second chance to attend a master class with Perlman as a teenager, Knuth had just broken a finger and was unable to perform for his idol.

As a consolation, Perlman signed Knuth’s cast.

“It meant so much,” Knuth said. “I still have the signed cast at home.”

dhartill@sunjournal.com

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