A live performance from the Metropolitan Opera of Humperdinck's opera Hansel and Gretel will air this Saturday morning at 10 a.m. on KING-FM, 98.1.
Currently the opera is also playing on KING's "Opera Channel", available for listening online at http://www.king.org/
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Multi-Cultural Event
The Multi-Cultural Event is one of my very favorite things each year. This year the committee has chosen to celebrate cultures of South America. So I've chosen a song from Peru, "Flor de Cactus", for kids to participate with at the event (on January 28th).
I'm teaching the song to children in kindergarten through fourth grades. It's in Spanish and has three parts, so I've replaced parts of the lyrics with "la la la"s to make it a little easier. I plan to teach it to recorder players as well, so that kids can choose to sing and/or play along at the event. Participation will be completely optional; no one is required to attend the event, nor to sing or play if they do attend. But I highly recommend attending; it's educational and great fun, and it's so nice to be together with so many OWS families!
I'm teaching the song to children in kindergarten through fourth grades. It's in Spanish and has three parts, so I've replaced parts of the lyrics with "la la la"s to make it a little easier. I plan to teach it to recorder players as well, so that kids can choose to sing and/or play along at the event. Participation will be completely optional; no one is required to attend the event, nor to sing or play if they do attend. But I highly recommend attending; it's educational and great fun, and it's so nice to be together with so many OWS families!
Thursday, December 1, 2011
The Music Teacher's Music Teacher
Over the Thanksgiving holiday I enjoyed a visit from Drake Mabry, who is a composer and a lifelong music performer and educator, and years ago was my oboe teacher. On Tuesday he was so kind as to visit my classes as well.
For the kindergarten and second grade classes, he played a couple of the "bamboo clarinets" which he makes himself, and talked about how they were made. For third graders, he played a condensed version of an alto recorder solo, which he had composed using avant-garde techniques. He demonstrated these techniques and talked about them a little before playing the piece. Third-graders were very good audience members, even remembering to wait until the end of the third movement before applauding.
I promised the third-graders that I'd put a pointer here to Drake's MySpace page so that they could see some of his other work (which includes visual art as well.) Here it is:
www.myspace.com/drakemabry
Drake also coached the fifth-grade recorder ensemble who come to me on Tuesdays, as well as my after-school "EXTREME Recorders!" group. For most of the kids, I'm the only recorder teacher they've ever had; so it was a wonderful opportunity for them to work with someone else's musical ideas.
For the kindergarten and second grade classes, he played a couple of the "bamboo clarinets" which he makes himself, and talked about how they were made. For third graders, he played a condensed version of an alto recorder solo, which he had composed using avant-garde techniques. He demonstrated these techniques and talked about them a little before playing the piece. Third-graders were very good audience members, even remembering to wait until the end of the third movement before applauding.
I promised the third-graders that I'd put a pointer here to Drake's MySpace page so that they could see some of his other work (which includes visual art as well.) Here it is:
www.myspace.com/drakemabry
Drake also coached the fifth-grade recorder ensemble who come to me on Tuesdays, as well as my after-school "EXTREME Recorders!" group. For most of the kids, I'm the only recorder teacher they've ever had; so it was a wonderful opportunity for them to work with someone else's musical ideas.
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