Martin Luther King Day Celebration

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
-Martin Luther King Jr.

Just a quick post to thank the community for a beautiful Martin Luther King Day celebration this Monday. I was so proud of the Lower Schoolers for their performance of Sally Rogers' "What Can One Little Person Do," especially our enthusiastic soloists who only had two weeks to prepare for the big show! If participation in the choir and drumming group continues to grow at this rate, we'll need to rent out a coliseum by 2012... it was quite a rush to play Brazilian rhythms with 50+ drummers and percussionists, from first-year Lower Schoolers to grandparents. The large gospel choir brought the audience to its feet. The words of Martin Luther King Jr. are every bit as relevant–and inspirational–as they were when he first spoke them. Hearing his words and those of other civil rights activists between heartfelt performances and worshipful silence was beyond powerful.

Before this year's celebration, I didn't know the history of the MLK holiday. One of our own teachers, Henry Walker, read a letter he wrote that was published in Newsweek in the early 1980s in support of the holiday. We also heard Ronald Reagan's moving words in support of the new holiday. I hope that communities far and wide will continue to work to make this day more than the tail end of a 3-day weekend, but a day of celebration, service, and reflection. And large drumming ensembles!

Happy New Year and Thank You!

I want to wish the CFS community and the wider music education community a very happy New Year, and a musical 2011! I also want to thank the wonderful community of Lower and Middle School parents for providing the generous holiday gift cards that enable my obsession with learning new musical instruments. You may wish to rescind your gifts, when you meet ACCORDION GIRL, saving the world one reed at a time!

I named her Rosebud.

See you next week. :-)

Happy Holidays! Musical gifts for you...

What a whirlwind week before the holiday break! A snow day before the holidays is quite a rare thing in our mild state. Last Wednesday is the only time I've ever seen so many students, parents, and teachers hoping that the snow would miss us. Fortunately, we were able to have a couple of hours on Friday to finish up holiday fun, despite the half day and one hour delay.

Many students and parents have asked for a copy of our holiday songbook. Here it is, in PDF format! The book is lyrics only, but chords and even free sheet music can be found for most of these songs with a quick web search.

Forest and Mountain classes learned "Jingle Bells" and "S'vivon" on their recorders this month, and many students are eager to show off their skills at home. If your child missed the handout, here is the sheet music, with bonus song "Silent Night."

As you know, I am always looking for new ways to integrate technology into my music classroom. Here is a novel idea... I imagine this would be an extremely popular Middle School elective! Happy Holidays!

Don't forget...

We're having holiday sing-alongs every morning this week in the Lower School Multi! We start at 8:20 and sing until 8:45, or until the classroom teachers come kick us out, whichever comes later. :-) This morning we had a fantastic guest trumpeter (a LS dad), and we expect violins and recorders, as well as more trumpet, later this week. Sky class kids had fun decorating the new songbooks this morning, which I frantically printed out after having a HUGE turnout for Monday morning! Happy Holidays!

A Quick Update

I've been so busy with both units that I haven't had any time to update recently! Here are a few highlights of the last 6 weeks:

--Trimester 2 has begun, and the Middle School musical, Michael Sirotta's "Alice in Wonderland," is underway. Our cast of 39 (see robots) is phenomenal, and Henry and I are so fortunate to have CFS alums Leah and Kiernan working with us on direction and choreography. Come see us perform February 11 and 12!

--While it was sad to say goodbye (for now) to my enthusiastic first trimester First-Year Music Rotation class, I am now enjoying my second group, all but two of whom I taught in the Lower School. One of my favorite parts of being a cross-unit teacher is that I get to be a part of the transformation from child to tween to teen. My first-years (they object when I call them my "ickle firsties") are exploring new territory in music class, from inventing instruments out of found objects to debating how music does and doesn't cross cultural boundaries.

--In the Lower School, recorders are going stronger than ever! Mountain and Forest students have learned "Jingle Bells" and are working on "S'vivon" for the holidays. Even the third-years are already further along than we've gotten in the previous two years. I can't wait to jump into reading notes on the staff and creating some ensemble music with recorders, ukuleles, and xylophones in January.

--River and Sky class have been singing, singing, singing in addition to playing drums, xylophones, and ukuleles. Both halves of River class were able to sing a bell song in four parts, then figure out how to play the parts on the xylophones! We're all ready for our annual holiday sing week, which begins Monday with daily sing-alongs in the Multi.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Celebrating Halloween.... With Recorders?

That's right, recorders are scary! Mountain and Forest classes learned a new arrangement of an old favorite, dubbed "Scarily We Troll Along," complete with full orchestral accompaniment. Thanks to Recorder Classroom for the music! Here is a frightfully enjoyable recording of the Mountain 4th years.

Scarily We Troll Along

CFS Middle School Play Cast Revealed By Robots!

The title pretty much says it all. Listen to the robots to hear the cast list for our 2011 Middle School production of Michael Sirotta's musical version of "Alice in Wonderland." The excitement is exciting! Thanks to XtraNormal.com for the technology.