Parent and child posed in front of Picture the Music artwork during award ceremony in foyer

Picture the Music

Spark your students’ imagination and creativity with Picture the Music. This FREE, cross-curricular program invites students in grades K-6 to experience music, art, and nature as powerful strategies for emotional regulation. Through listening to music and using painting or drawing to express how it makes them feel, students will begin to understand and process their emotions in new and healthy ways.

This year’s program features “The Dance of the Butterfly” from Albert Roussel’s The Spider’s Feast. After exploring the music and responding with art, submit your students’ artwork into the Picture the Music art competition. Select works of art will be honored at an awards ceremony and featured in a traveling exhibit. See the Teacher Guide for specific details including how to prepare and submit student entries.

How to Submit Artwork

Online submission allows for quick and easy entry. Guided by you, students listen to this year’s musical selection and respond to its emotion and structure through drawing or painting. Then you may choose up to seven pieces of art to submit to the competition.

This year’s Picture The Music is created in partnership with the Missouri Botanical Garden, Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House, and Saint Louis Art Museum.

Submissions must be received by by January 17, 2024.

Teachers, save the date for the award ceremony on April 7, 2024.

Submission Form

Congratulations to the 2023 Picture the Music Finalists!

Thank you to all the teachers who participated in PTM! During the 2022/2023 school year, more than 16,000 students from 85 schools explored the Jupiter from Gustav Holst’s The Planets and created paintings and drawings that expressed their own creative thought and emotions inspired by the music. The top 100 finalists were selected from 522 pieces of art that were submitted. Here are your 2023 Picture the Music winners:

Maestro Awards Winners

Grades K-3: Avery LaBeaume | Grade 3, Campbellton Elementary, The Rainbow Keys
Grades 4-6: Maxine Conner | Grade 6, Immaculate Conception, Galaxy of Harmony

To see a complete list of the top 100 finalists, click here or view the gallery below.

SLSO education programs are presented by:

Steward Family Foundation logo
World Wide Technology

Picture the Music is presented by:

St. Louis Symphony Volunteer Association

Picture the Music is supported by:

The Boeing Community Fund of St. Louis