The Sleepover at the Museum concert Photo: Courtesy of SSO

Be it in the popular Night At the Museum movie series, where the exhibits come alive at night, or Karen LeFrak's Sleepover at the Museum books, which follows the story of Mason and his friends on their adventures at the Museum of Natural History, staying overnight at a museum has always been seen as something cool and wonderful by children. On Tuesday, International Children's Day, musicians from the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (SSO) helped a group of children experience this for themselves through a 45-minute-long performance.  

According to SSO artistic director Yu Long, the Tuesday night performance was based on the multimedia orchestral work by LeFrak, a New York writer and composer the SSO has worked with many times, which was in turn based on her acclaimed children's books.  

Conducted by Zhang Jiemin, the orchestra turned the Shanghai Symphony Hall into a musical museum accompanied by narration from Chen Yanhua for the young audience, who followed in the steps of Mason and his friends as they visited blue whales, T-Rex, butterfly pavilions and intergalactic planets. 

The orchestral work is part of Yu's efforts to promote international cooperation and communication, which have included staging music from BBC Earth documentary series like Blue Planet II and introducing Deutsche Grammophon's Yellow Lounge to China.