The students file into the hall wearing t-shirts in their school colors. They huddle in teams and face off against opponents from around the city. "You're going down this year, Bryker Woods!" challenges someone from Lee Elementary. It's the annual citywide finals and the competition is fierce, the rivalries intense.

"Parents, please clear the floor and move to the balcony area," an official voice announces over the P.A. system. "We're ready to begin."

Basketball, baseball, badminton?

No. Beethoven, Brahms, Bach.

This is the Music Memory final competition of the year, and all-star teams from 40 elementary schools are poised to listen to the orchestra on stage and write down their answers. Is that movement from Beethoven's Symphony No. 5? Could that possibly be a rock version of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries"? Who wrote the "William Tell Overture"?

When University of Texas graduate Mollie Tower revived the Music Memory program in the Austin Independent School District in the late 1970s, she had no idea that the program would become so popular and spread to 10 states and thousands of schools nationwide.

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