Concert Features Students’ Photos of ‘Life in Long Beach’

Fourth- and fifth-graders watched their own photos flash by on 10-foot screens as they listened to live symphony music Friday at the Concert for Young People presented by the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra.

The idea was to “give these kids an experience not only in seeing their own photography,” said Cindy Loeffler of the Long Beach Symphony Assn., “ but it could conceivably lead to a lifetime love of music.”

Using six slide projectors and three screens, the concert featured a photo-choreography show, combining photographs projected against a backdrop of live classical music.

Using donated disposable cameras, 13,500 Long Beach elementary school students were encouraged to take pictures at the beginning of the school year depicting their everyday lives at home, school, and at play.

The result: more than 14,000 photos whittled down to a smaller pool of 2,000 that were then sent to photo-choreographer James Westwater.

Out of that group, he selected 300 and fashioned a seven-minute show featuring the students’ work, titled “Life in Long Beach.”