The Festinice family concert cycle offered children and their parents the opportunity to socialise with music, develop their imagination, learn new things, stimulate thought processes, develop aesthetic and ethical principles, encourage creativity, increase access to cultural content suitable for the youngest children, and promote general cultural development. Festinice was a music series in Ljubljana that educated and guided the youngest in the art of music. Over the years, we have successfully attracted regular visitors who attended our concerts for children and came from other parts of Slovenia. What made our way of presenting music exceptional was the thoughtful design, which brought music closer to young people through communication with the performers. The concerts were deliberately arranged so that the contact between the artists and the audience was uninterrupted. The concerts explicitly engaged with the youngest audiences, offering them the same challenging classical music as the adult audience. Most of the time, we presented a programme that we performed in the evening concerts of the Festine series. Children listened to music from different periods, from the Baroque to newly written music. They learned about instruments, composers, musicians, conductors and their musical peers. They were introduced to the world of rhythms and melodies in a very simple way and were guided through simple didactic methods to the process of conscious listening to music, learning the basics of music theory in a very simple way. The script and the professional but relaxed commentary were led by a commentator with the help of the leader of the performing ensemble. Young listeners were actively involved in the process and were allowed to ask questions, express themselves loudly about what they had heard and seen, and make suggestions to the musicians. The commentator and the ensemble leader or soloist were always prepared for possible twists and turns (depending on the children's reactions) in the course of the concerts, so that the children could make the most of their own imaginative performance. The participation of the audience was highly desirable, as this put them in the closest contact with the performers - we encouraged this and in this way, we prepared scripts which always included parts in which the audience actively participated. This put them in the role of the performer, they could try to play different instruments, take on the role of the conductor, observe him from all sides, as well as the musicians - all in order to get the youngest ones excited about music, about performing music, and to get them used to listening in a focused way. The length of the pieces on the programme were adapted to the child's ability to follow along. Festines are indispensable for the performers of the Festine concert series. For us, understanding audiences of different generations has always been key. Therefore, it is extremely important for the performers to actively engage with their audience.
