Showdown Symphony: The Backstory

The collaboration of four people, all with different degrees from the same university, led to this musical, poetic picture book.

In 1935, Moscow Children’s Theatre Director Natalia Satz asked composer Sergei Prokofiev to write a composition that introduces children to the instruments of the orchestra. The “symphonic fairytale” he wrote debuted a year later and has since become one of the most familiar pieces of modern classical music: “Peter and the Wolf.”

Across the decades, dozens of recordings feature famous narrators such as Eleanor Roosevelt, David Bowie, Leonard Bernstein, Sophia Loren, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Sting. Interestingly, the librettist whom Satz hired to write the text of “Peter and the Wolf” originally set the story in rhyming couplets, but Prokofiev felt that the poetry distracted listeners from the music and wrote the familiar prose version himself.

Recently, four alumni of Brigham Young University with degrees in four different disciplines collaboratively challenged this perspective of poetry and music as competitive elements of storytelling. Their picture book, Showdown Symphony, matches musical structure with poetic forms to bring its tale to life. In the story, a mother mouse searches for seeds one autumn night to feed her family. She encounters a cat and owl hunting for food of their own, and through persistence, courage, and ingenuity, she outwits them and brings home both a meal and a remarkable tale just as day breaks. Kevin Klein (BA, MA English ’98, ’01), a 6th grade teacher, and his wife, school psychologist Leah Klein (MS ’00, School Counseling Psychology), wrote the text; artist Sarah D. Newell (BFA Illustration ’17) illustrated the book, and musician Emmaline Jackson (BA Commercial Music ‘17) composed its symphonic score. 

Showdown Symphony’s central conflict draws on texts from classic farmyard tales to Tom and Jerry cartoons. The story also channels the clever mouse protagonist and rhyming format reminiscent of Julia Donaldson’s eminent picture book The Gruffalo. However, its use of sound patterns in language combined with the storytelling elements of music yield what appears to be the first of such narrative experiences in picture-book format.  

The project’s initial inspiration came not from “Peter and the Wolf” or The Gruffalo, but actually Sesame Street. While watching the show one afternoon with Leah and their two young children, Kevin was struck by the animated skit of a beat poet, accompanied by a jazz combo, narrating a day in the life of seven city cats. It inspired him to write a few stanzas about a cat hunting a mouse using language that both describes the animals’ actions and mimics the sound and pace of their movement.   

This poetic approach, which relies on alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, and choices of metrical pattern, is perhaps most famously described by English neoclassical poet Alexander Pope in his Essay on Criticism: “’Tis not enough no harshness gives offense, / The sound must seem an echo to the sense.” To demonstrate this concept, Pope offers couplets with contrasting aural qualities such as these:

Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;

…

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,

The line too labours, and the words move slow.

Following this principle, and borrowing the structure and some musical concepts from Beethoven’s 6th (Pastoral) Symphony, Kevin and Leah divided the storyline of Showdown Symphony into five sections that resemble symphonic movements. Each movement is named for the tempo that best represents the character and action in that section. Similarly, the Kleins chose particular metrical patterns and rhyme schemes that reflect the tempo and content of each section.

“If we’ve done our job well, the poetic elements enhance the story and characters without drawing attention to themselves,” Kevin says. Leah, a school psychologist, adds, “And it’s the same with the story’s character values. We worked to make sure the mouse’s actions demonstrate problem-solving and resilience through showing, not telling.”

In search of models for their project, the Kleins could not find another picture book that similarly synthesized familiar musical structure with an array of poetic forms to tell its story. With rhyming picture books, the prevailing wisdom is to choose a stanza pattern – often couplets of anapestic tetrameter (think Dr. Seuss) – and stick with it through the whole book. But guided by “Peter and the Wolf” and the Sesame Street skit, the Kleins persevered. Agents and editors in the print industry were reluctant to commit to the project, so Kevin and Leah began the process of self-publication. After months of searching through the work of illustrators from around the world, Kevin met artist Sarah D. Newell at a local SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) event. Leah and Kevin saw her illustrations of small animals, Sarah read the manuscript, and both parties knew it was a serendipitous fit.

A few months later, with the words and line drawings in place, Kevin and Leah hired British voiceover artist Lucy Wolfe to do the narration. “Sarah chose an English farm for the story’s setting,” Leah explains, “so we needed a narrator to match. We had over 40 demo responses, and Lucy’s stood out immediately.”

Next, their search for a composer began with an email to Ron Saltmarsh, director of BYU’s Commercial Music program. His posting of the project to program alumni caught the notice of composer, oboist, and music teacher Emmaline Jackson. She had scored the soundtrack for an award-winning BYU student short video production, “Ram’s Horn,” and a ballet based on the Chronicles of Narnia. This experience, and a longstanding appreciation for Prokofiev helped her create a symphonic score that complements the story’s pictures and poetry. "Growing up, I loved listening to movie soundtrack themes while the associated images played in my mind,” she explains. “I wanted to provide the same connections for kids experiencing Showdown Symphony by creating themes that perfectly embodied each animal and story moment."

The expertise of each contributor was a necessary foundation, and Kevin and Leah recognize that the willingness to give and receive feedback from all parties was just as vital to the project’s success. As Sarah explains, “Perhaps the most vital stage of visual storytelling is when we work together to bring our characters to life, and Showdown Symphony was no different. Dozens of sketches and color compositions later we met our main character on the page, a brave and nurturing mother mouse, clad in red to symbolize her courage, with a cunning glint hidden behind her soft expression as a hint of things to come.”

Kevin noted the same result with Emmaline’s composition. “We worked quite a bit on just the opening three measures, and the success of our collaboration with it allowed us to tweak and sweeten other parts of the composition that we might have otherwise just left alone.”  Emmaline summarizes the project as “a fun challenge for me. Each round of edits had me diving deeper into the sound and personality of each animal, and Kevin's notes really helped me tap into creative choices that elevated the themes to the next level.”

Even before the hardcover became available in November 2023, educators recognized the project’s potential as an engaging text for teaching language arts and music concepts. In late 2022, the Australian curriculum company Inquisitive built reading lesson plans around the orchestrated, narrated book video, and music educator and coach Jeanette Shorey has also created resources based on the book that are available on StoriesthatSing.net, her music-reading integration website. As she has written about the project, “There are many picture books that teach about music, but Showdown Symphony is one of the few I know that also teaches through music. It’s an unforgettable experience of tempos and instruments working with pictures and words to tell a delightful story.”

Overall, the four BYU-grad collaborators hope that their mixed-media story is one Sergei Prokofiev, Alexander Pope, Sesame Street creator Jim Henson, and Julia Donaldson would approve of – and more importantly, one that children will enjoy seeing, hearing, reading, and learning from time and again.