Red Raider Showcase

On November 6th, the middle school and high school choirs performed for a packed house at the Red Raider Showcase. The show was phenomenal, and I highly recommend attending this annual event! I was glad to see current students in the audience and former students in the audience and onstage. It's amazing to see the growth of our kids and the immense amount of talent in Pulaski! Congratulations to the performers and their directors, Mrs. Amy Wright (PCMS) and Ms. Elissa Richardson (PHS), as well as everyone else who helped make the Red Raider Showcase a success.

The Pulaski High School Choirs started off the show with director Elissa Richardson's arranged medley of "Love Runs Out" and "Rumor Has It."

Up next was a student-composed barrel drumming feature (complete with costumes!) titled "A Work in Progress."

The third performance of the night was a self-accompanied vocal solo, "Warrior," by Demi Lovato.

The Treble Choir took the stage to perform "Wings" by Little Mix.

Composer Claude Debussy's piano solo Sunken Cathedral made an appearance.

The PHS Chamber Choir sang a beautiful a cappella Pentatonix song, "Run to You."

Two students choreographed a dance duet to "Everybody Talks" by Neon Trees.

A student sang "Endlessly" by The Cab.

Look at all of these guys! The 7th-12th grade men joined forces to sing "Stand By Me." What a great way to build connections between the middle school and high school programs!

Up next was a vocal solo/dance duet with instrumental accompaniment: "Dear Future Husband" by Meghan Trainor.

The last song before intermission was the Green Day song "21 Guns," performed by the PHS Choirs.

Act II started with an '80s throwback! The PHS Show Choir performed "Footloose."

The next piece consisted of two vocalists (one of whom arranged the medley), a guitarist, and a percussionist. Destin played the cajon for this song - it's essentially a fancy box that you sit on while you play. The group performed a medley of "Thinkin' Bout You" (Frank Ocean) and "Sunday Morning" (Maroon 5).

Next, Ellis sang some Elvis - "If I Can Dream."

The 7th-12th grade women took the stage to sing Rachel Platten's "Fight Song," arranged by PHS choir director Elissa Richardson.

After the beautiful inspiration of the last song, it was time for some humor. If you weren't there, you missed a hilarious vocal duet with self-accompanied accordion and tuba. (Welcome to Pulaski, haha!) "Shaving Cream" by Benny Bell got the audience giggling, and sometimes even guffawing.

The PHS Concert Choir sang "Falling Slowly," arranged by one of the students.

The student emcees kept the audience entertained during the swift transitions, at one point resorting to using some didgeridoos. The whole concert was a touch over two hours, counting 21 songs and a 15 minute intermission. It flew by!

A dance solo to "Fortune Teller" was next.

The last solo performance of the night was "Angels" by Birdy.

The PHS Drumline made an appearance! They played a medley of drumline cadences, arranged by instructor Adam LeGrave and the drumline. I hear they got *glowing* reviews.

Drumline video: https://goo.gl/photos/2zeUf2XZ8C4deGWy6

The 7th grade, 8th grade, and high school choirs combined for a grand finale, "It's Time," by Imagine Dragons.

Buckets and Muffins and Thank Yous, Oh My!

To wrap up our year at Lannoye, we had an assembly last week.

Most of the spring 2015 bucket drummers

The original purpose of the assembly was to give our 4th and 5th grade bucket drummers a chance to perform the piece they've been working on, "Blue Muffin Tuesday" by Mark Shelton. Thanks to a generous bucket donation from Home Depot, we were able to do this in a simple and uniform fashion. (Thanks, Home Depot!) We were also able to share our performance video with the composer, who complimented us on having an army of buckets to bring his piece to life!

To achieve the different sounds, we played on the head of the bucket (the bottom of it), the rim of the bucket (the slightly raised edge of the bottom), the floor (or metal chairs, if you were in the back row), and the sticks themselves (clicking them together). Also, during the middle section where it goes into a half-time feel (the tempo doesn't change, but the emphasis does), you'll notice some group improvisation, trading twos between 4th graders and 5th graders.

Since we didn't want the assembly (which later added the PBIS Leadership student of the month awards) to be a two-minute hurrah, I found a cute song for Teacher Appreciation Month in Music K8. The entire school (K-5) learned it in secret to make it a surprise for the rest of the staff. During a couple of classes, all the kids took some time to write thank you notes to the people who have taught them things at Lannoye (including all staff positions, not just their classroom teachers). The kids had lots of kind, insightful, unprompted things to say! I assembled these notes into little party bags for the teachers and attached a cute "thanks for caring" poem. The bucket drummers hid them under their buckets until after the whole school surprised the adults with the song, then they dashed out and delivered the bags. Nearly 200 kids in the school, and they kept the secret for almost a month!! Surprise: Success.

This assembly was a great way to end our school year, and I can't wait to see what next year will bring!

As a way to show my appreciation for the work that the bucket drummers put into their performance, I spent a large portion of my Monday baking muffins...including blue muffins...for Tuesday. (Get it? "Blue Muffin Tuesday" was the name of their piece.) 11 dozen mini muffins later and a few hours of sleep later...the kids (and some teachers) demolished all of them!

Some of the kids asked for the recipes, so here they are:

For the blue blueberry muffins, I used THIS RECIPE and doubled it. I added a bunch of blue food coloring and used mini muffins (adjusting bake time to 15 minutes), and the doubled recipe made about 5 dozen of them.

For the (uncolored) banana muffins, I used THIS RECIPE (single batch). Since I made mini muffins out of them, I adjusted the bake time to 15 minutes. This resulted in about 6 dozen muffins.

I left an open invitation for the bucket players to eat lunch in my room or to just swing through for muffins before recess. I didn't get a picture with the whole gang, but here's the view from my desk partway through:

I'm very proud of what these kids have accomplished, and I'm glad that I could share my time and other interests with them the way that they've shared their time and growing talents with me.

Appreciating Jazz at Special Loved Ones Day

This year at Lannoye, we organized our Special Loved Ones Day (formerly known as Grandparents Day) differently. Students got to spend time with their special loved ones at different stations throughout the school. They got to read, make crafts, go on a scavenger hunt, learn more about each other through interviews, and enjoy some time together. The day ended with an in-house performance by the Red Raider Jazz Combo from Pulaski High School. (Happy Jazz Appreciation Month!) Lannoye students and their families were able to get together and listen to some great music! Many thanks to Ms. Kayla Koch and the high school students and parents that were able to make this performance happen!

PHS Red Raider Combo performs at Lannoye's Special Loved Ones Day

Side view of the Red Raider Jazz Combo

Audience members got to get up and dance!

Another view of the dancing

"Cold Duck Time"

"Doxy"

How the Penguins Saved Christmas

Here are the concert videos from our 2014 holiday musical, How the Penguins Saved Christmas. (I'm posting both videos because of the double casting in two of the 5th grade roles.) Enjoy!

12:30 performance

2:30 performance

Spring Concert 2014: We All Have a Rhythm

The spring concert this year was an informance, in which the students informed the audience of things they learned through their performance. We started things out with our 4th and 5th grade bucket ensemble. These students worked very hard and gave up 8 lunch recesses to learn "Bucket Rock 101" by Mark Shelton (from his book Give Me a Bucket, Heritage Music Press, a division of The Lorenz Corporation; used with permission). They worked together to come up with a name, and they decided to call themselves The Big Bang.

The Big Bang

"Bucket Rock 101" by Mark Shelton (publisher information above)

K-5

"Fanga Alafia" (traditional Yoruba welcome song, from Nigeria)

Some of the 5th graders from The Big Bang volunteered to play buckets for our full school songs. They decided to call themselves The Bucket Rebels.

Kindergarten

"I Met a Bear" 
“The Other Day I Met a Bear” (Sing along version)
Recording © 2005 by GIA Publications, Inc.
www.giamusic.com
All rights reserved. Used by permission.
"Charlie Over the Ocean"

1st Grade

"Doggie, Doggie"

"We Are Playing in the Forest"

2nd Grade

"The Water is Wide"

2nd and 3rd Grade

"Land of the Silver Birch" and "My Paddle's Keen and Bright"

3rd Grade

"Kookaburra"

4th Grade

"Li'l Liza Jane"

"Lady My"

5th Grade

"Goin' to Boston"

"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"

K-5

"We All Have a Song"

By Heather Pierson, used with permission

Grandparents Day 2014

This year we celebrated Grandparents Day on March 21, right before spring break. This wasn't a music concert, but I was asked to teach the school two songs (an opener and a closer) for the program. Here are the songs the students sang for their special guests:

"Let's Go See Our Grandparents" (arranger unknown)

“A Song For Grandparents Day” (by John Riggio (ASCAP) © 2012 Plank Road Publishing, Inc. • All Rights Reserved • Used by permission)

2013 Winter Concert

I want to congratulation all of the Lannoye students on a wonderful pair of winter concert performances! I heard nothing but praise from members of the audience. They were happy to hear the 3rd graders singing in Russian and the 4th graders singing in Hebrew, to hear so many students playing instruments, and to hear students singing in rounds (3rd and 4th grade) and descants (5th grade - "Christmas through the Eyes of a Child"). Again, thank you to all of the people who made this possible!

If you couldn't make it to the concert (or if you want to relive it), here are the videos of each song!

Kindergarten: 

"Snow is Falling Today"

"My Red Sled"

1st Grade

"If I Could Fly like a Snowflake"

"For You"

2nd Grade

"Snowman Choir"

"Merry Christmas Bells"

Kindergarten, 1st Grade, and 2nd Grade

Accompanied by 5th grade on recorders

"The World Says Merry Christmas"

3rd Grade

Here We Come A-Caroling

Yolochka

4th Grade

"Do You Hear?"

"Shalom Chaverim"

5th Grade

"Music Alone Shall Live"

"Christmas through the Eyes of a Child"

3rd Grade, 4th Grade, and 5th Grade

"My Favorite Things"

Whole School, K-5

"We Wish You a Merry Christmas"

3rd Grade: "Yolochka"

The 3rd graders are learning a Russian Christmas song, "Yolochka," for the winter concert.

A Russian cartoon, Masha and the Bear, using the song "Yolochka"

There's another cartoon at the end of this post that shows the story of the tree as the song is sung.

The song is about the life of a Christmas tree (or fir tree) growing in a forest.

Photo courtesy of High Country Christmas Trees

This song has an interesting history behind it. It was first published in Russia in 1903. Russia is a country in the continent of Asia, and it's really big!

Image from mapsofworld.com 

Russia is the largest country in the world - it's almost twice the size of the United States. The map below shows an outline of Russia placed over the United States so you can compare the sizes of the two countries. 

Image from mapfrappe.blogspot.com

In 1917, a civil war started in Russia. It ended in 1922, but with a new government in place, and with larger borders. Russia combined with some other countries to form the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). 

The new government was very strict, and they had harsh punishments for people who did not follow their laws. People were no longer allowed to celebrate Christmas! Instead, the people of the USSR moved a bunch of their Christmas traditions (like decorating a fir tree and exchanging gifts) to New Year's, which they were allowed to celebrate. Since "Yolochka" is about a tree, they were still allowed to sing that song. 

The USSR dissolved (broke apart) in 1991, and now the people can celebrate Christmas again. New Year's is still a big holiday, though, after celebrating it as such for so many years.

The lyrics (or words) of the first verse look like this in Russian (which uses a different alphabet than English):

В лесу родилась елочка,

В лесу она росла.

Зимой и летом стройная,

Зеленая была.

 This is what that sounds like in English:

Vlayzoo rodeelas Yolochka
Vlayzoo ohna rosla
Zeemoy ee lee-ehtome stroynaya
Zelyonaya bilah 

And finally, here are all five verses in English:

1. The forest raised a Christmas tree,

‘Twas silent and serene

In winter and in summer

It was slender and so green.

2. The wind sang it a lullaby:

Sleep Christmas tree, sleep tight!

The snow was making clothes for it:

It was a pretty sight!

3. A trembling bunny put himself

Beneath its arms so wide;

The hungry wolf just passed him by -

A lovely place to hide!

4. Some sleigh bells rang throughout the woods,

The snow was crisp and clean,

A horsey brought a forester

To hew that tree so green.

5. And now it comes to visit us,

With lights and garlands bright,

While all the children dance and sing

To greet it with delight!