As the rousing brass of the Liberty Bell March resounds, the audience are exhorted to stamp their feet in time to the music. In a screen in front of them, Moses and Miriam Monkey are leading the cartoon Israelites across the Red Sea.

It’s Classical Pesach, a new show premiered last week at St Johns Wood Synagogue by Kids Classics, an educational enterprise which wants to instil in young children a love of classical music.

So it does not just tell the story of the Exodus for nursery-age children but introduces them to musical instruments and terms. At one point they are asked to purse their lips and make the sound of an oboe , which Moses Monkey carries rather than a rod; at another, to raise their voices in a “crescendo”.

And as well as Seder staples such as Mah Nishtanah and Dayenu, the music includes extracts from the Clock Symphony, the Blue Danube and the Trout Quintet, which is played by some animated fish below the Red Sea.

Kids Classics was launched by pianist Marion Musry, who has been teaching classical music to young children in schools and private tuition groups for more than 20 years. “The whole point is to catch them when they are young,” she said. “Every child should learn music just as they learn to read and write.”

More recently she has been joined by her daughter Hayley Weisz, who began developing shows last year. Starting in libraries, they did their first Jewish spin-off, a Chanucah show, for South Hampstead Synagogue in the winter and now they are preparing something for Shavuot .

The interactive Pesach performance was energetically led by Mrs Weisz, who encouraged the children to make liberal use of the maracas, tambourines, triangles and other percussion laid out before them.

“They were raptured,” said Chai Cohen, head of the synagogue’s nursery. “Their eyes were popping out of their heads. Most children at nursery wouldn’t have heard of an oboe.”

The mother and daughter team have also created a digital teaching progamme for primary schools, where music is part of the national curriculum. They offer a 12-week course for each year group from reception to year six, marketed under the name of Symbolsmash; what is special, they say, is you don’t have to be a music teacher to be able to use it. 

Which could be music to the ears of many primary school heads under budgetary pressure and unable to afford a specialist teacher. Only this month a new report warned music in schools was in “a perilous state”.

Teaching music should be as “easy as teaching your ABCs”, Mrs Weisz says in the introductory video to the course. 

“Each programme is based on one piece of classical music with an illustrated story. We take 12 features of the music such as the conductor, the musical notation and the different musical instruments.”

Learning about classical music is not only about appreciating a rich cultural tradition. It is also developing skills that can help with other areas of study, Mrs Weisz says.
Music is one of three universal languages along with maths and computer code, she says, and understanding one can help understanding of another.

When hesitant teachers protest they are not musical, she reassures them. “I say, ‘Do you enjoy music?’ Then you are musical.’”