Members of Ensemble Galilei used historic music, readings and photographs to bring history to life and connect the audience to the past on Friday.

Neal Conan, Lily Knight and members of Ensemble Galilei combined visual and audio to tell the story of 19th- and early 20th-century pictures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

The pictures, taken from the time of the Civil War to the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, were coupled with works from leaders of politics and culture such as Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and Jane Addams.

Conan and Knight took turns reciting selected readings which went along with the story of the pictures and the music.

Sue Richards, the harpist for Ensemble Galilei, said each of the elements add to the story.

“You start with the images, then you add the words to place image in time and space and then the music brings out the emotion of the image and readings,” Richards said.

Through these elements the history is easier to connect with, he said.

Conan and Knight told the stories of the past by acting out the parts of the speaker of the poetry or readings.

The program included poems that tell the experience of the

people.

Conan read “I Started From Baltimore” by Frederick Douglass to help illustrate the treatment and life of slave and escaped slaves.

While reading this, pictures of slaves, white families with their slaves, and slave families were shown on the screen and Ensemble Galilei played “Polonaise,” a traditional Swedish song, and “Squire Wood’s Lament” by Turlough O’ Carolan. The music gave emotion to the reading and pictures.

Kim Christensen, a freshman elementary education major, said she thought the different elements were interesting.

“It was the way they combined everything so you understood it better,” Christensen said.

Brittney Kemper, a junior biological sciences major, said she learned from the program.

“It’s been hitting in subjects from different points of views,” Kemper said. “It’s very eye-opening to different scenes in history.”

Conan started out in his career by saying the radio name for a radio station before calling baseball play-by-play. He is now a host for National Public Radio and has won many awards during his career.

Knight is an actress and has performed in movies such as “My Sister’s Keeper.”

The Ensemble Galilei includes: Hanneke Cassel, fiddle; Kathryn Montoya, recorders, whistle and oboe; Jackie Moran, percussion; Sue Richards, Celtic harp; Carolyn Anderson Surrick, viola da gamba; and Ginger Hildebrand, violin.

This is the third First Person event that Ensemble has done. They have also done “A Universe of Dreams,” where they played music and read selections that went along with pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope and First Person: Stories from the Edge of the World with pictures from National Geographic.

While at Eastern, Ensemble Galilei taught a master class where they listened to students perform and gave them tips.

Hildebrand said she thought the class went well.

“I thought it was great,” she said. “We heard a bunch of students play. I hope we were helpful.”

The ensemble also played for the VA Illiana Health Care System in Danville.

Richards said the ensemble likes to perform for veterans because it gives them a good feeling.

“The people there have so little in their lives,” Richards said. “It’s always rewarding to see the looks one their faces while we play.”

Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].