Musician, know thy audience

After going over the difference between high notes and low notes with the preschoolers, Jessica Sibelman will tell the story of ''Rumplestiltskin" on her clarinet.

It is a program she has worked to develop with Tanya Maggi, coordinator of the Outreach Program at the New England Conservatory, where Sibelman, 18, is a freshman.

''It's just trying to bring music to a younger generation that probably wouldn't be exposed to it," Sibelman said of her debut performance as part of the Outreach Program at the Northeastern University preschool in December.

Though Sibelman targets her performances to children, Maggi sends student volunteers to perform all over the city, from libraries and museums to hospitals and senior centers.

The concerts are, of course, a benefit to the groups who come to watch, but are also meant to teach a specific skill to the students -- how to tailor a performance to each audience.

''It's set up very much like a real-life model of what students can be asked to do when they get professional jobs," Maggi said of the program.

Students of all musical backgrounds participate, and Maggi sets up the various venues. Once the performance space is set, she then helps them design programs that work for each audience.

At Donna Bareket's first and only performance in December, she sang a duet from a Mozart opera and an aria from ''The Marriage of Figaro." The other two singers performed classical and opera music as well, along with the student pianist.

''It was a low-pressure, do-it-yourself kind of thing," she said. ''It was nice. A nice environment and a big boomy room."

The performance at the Honan Library in Allston was also her way of doing community service, she said.

Maggi began the Outreach Program at the New England Conservatory in 2003, after having served in similar organizations across the country.

She spent a year as education program manager for the St. Louis Symphony and two years as community programs director for the Tulsa Philharmonic before making her way to Boston. She first became interested in community programs as a performer with the New World Symphony in Miami.

''I'm a violist myself, so I spent many years performing education and outreach programs with string quartets and other different ensembles. So I kind of come at this as a colleague, as a performer, as well as an educator," she said.

Daniel McDonough, part of the Jupiter Quartet, a graduate group at the conservatory, said he and his fellow musicians will frequently bounce ideas off of Maggi before setting up a program. McDonough, who is a candidate for a master's degree in string quartet, has been performing outreach programs with his group since they became part of the Honors Ensemble Program last year.

McDonough, a cellist, said his group, which also includes two violin players and a viola player, will sit down and come up with a script before each performance. They will then do a run-through before heading out to various arenas, including schools in Chinatown and Brookline. The quartet performs sets of classical music, frequently having the children relate the sounds to feelings, colors, and thoughts.

''It's the most rewarding when the kids just really respond to it," he said. ''There's this impression that you have to really dumb it down and you can only play sort of really basic stuff, but it's amazing what they'll get excited about."

When McDonough graduates next May, he said, he would like to continue performing with string quartets, and knows outreach programs will be a big part of his career choice.

Bareket, who will graduate with a master's degree in voice performance this May, said she hopes her first outreach performance will not be her last.

''I would definitely do it again, it was just so much fun," she said. ''We had a very small audience, but they were just so into it, it made it worth it."