For Kids: Tales, Tunes or Toot Your Horn

Decisions, decisions. Theater, music, storytelling, art: You can take your pick from Saturday’s full menu.

The Pasadena Symphony’s free “Musical Circus,” for ages 4 to 10, includes a “musical petting zoo,” where kids can toot a horn, pluck a violin and bang a drum; plus a performance by the String Family Players and an open rehearsal for the symphony’s evening concert.

Actress Barbara Bain and artist-writer Annie Reiner team up at Santa Monica College in “A Visit to the Art Galaxy,” for 4- to 8-year-olds, featuring Bain’s reading of Reiner’s children’s book, a display of Reiner’s original drawings and a drawing activity.

Children and adults can experience the early days of California’s Gold Rush at the Huntington Library in the Da Camera Society’s “Gold Rush Tales and Mountain Music” concert, with storyteller-actor Peter Kors and Sonora County’s Black Irish Band playing music that immigrants brought to 19th century America. Don’t miss the Huntington’s exhibition “Land of Golden Dreams: California in the Gold Rush Decade 1848-1858.”

L.A. Theatre Works’ Arts and Children Project presents students from Audubon Middle School in a modern-day retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl,” adapted for stage by Jack Neary, about a homeless girl who finds hope in a magical book of matches.

BE THERE

“Musical Circus,” Pasadena Civic Auditorium, 300 E. Green St., Pasadena. Saturday, 8:30 a.m.-noon. Free, reservations not necessary. (626) 793-7172.

“Visit to the Art Galaxy,” Santa Monica College, Madison campus, Santa Monica Boulevard and 11th Street, Santa Monica. Saturday, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Free, but reservations are required. (310) 434-3431.

“Gold Rush Tales and Mountain Music,” Huntington Library Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. Saturday, 1:30 and 3 p.m. $18; children, $12. (310) 954-4300.

“The Little Match Girl,” Dorsey High School, 3537 Farmdale Ave., Los Angeles. Saturday, 3 and 8 p.m. Free. (310) 827-0808.