How do music history, homeschoolers, and the Van Cliburn Series come together? On an airplane, of course.

Airplanes present a peculiar work environment. On the one hand, everyone is miserable, stuffed into a tiny place with dozens of similarly compressed folks. Add in the crying babies and food reminiscent of cafeteria food from the fourth grade (but I think my school’s food was tastier than that). Plus, the lure of mediocre movies played through headphones that look like buttons on a denim jacket.

On the other hand, things prioritize themselves interestingly on airplanes. Yesterday, flying back from Switzerland, I got quite a bit done. I made myself avoid a dumb movie to work on a talk I’m giving tonight, Thursday, for the Gala opening concert of the 50th Anniversary season of the Van Cliburn competition. I’ll save my gushing about my childhood idol for a different post and merely say that the Cliburn Piano Competition, started by the great American pianist Van Cliburn in 1962, is a high point in American and International musical life.

But my excitement about this concert extends beyond the jubilee celebration, and even beyond my glee at the program: a four-piano (harpsichord) concerto by J. S. Bach, a two-piano concerto by Felix Mendelssohn, and a two-piano concerto by François Poulenc, all played by four Cliburn Competition Gold Medalists.

My excitement has to do with the fact that a large group of homeschoolers will be at this concert. Yes, the Cliburn is reaching out to homeschoolers (as are many arts organizations) and asked me to help them connect.

Some students will make it early enough for Cliburn Conversations, the pre-concert talk I give an hour before the program starts in a lush, wood-paneled room in Bass Hall. The audience for “Cliburn Conversations” is a loyal, fun-loving, knowledgeable group of folks, some of whom I’ve known for 25+ years. But the presence of those homeschoolers tomorrow night will add a special sparkle to the occasion.

So, I’m thinking hard about this talk. This type of concert will be new for many of the kids. The families will use the opportunity as a special dress-up occasion, and there will be a general mood of excitement in the air. That’s terrific! But I also want to make sure the students take away some concrete knowledge of the pieces and an understanding of the dynamics of a piano concerto: how the soloist, conductor, and orchestra interact. Or, in this case, how the multiple soloists interact—indeed romp—through these high-energy pieces.

I’ll give you a report on how it all went.