Music Teachers Going Above and Beyond in RSU#35

Putting student needs first 

The following four teachers are going above and beyond teaching and reaching their learners in the RSU#35 school district. I am grateful for the work that David, Kate, Bryan and Kris are doing in music education, ‘schooling away from school’. All very humble, missing their students, below are some of their stories including ideas and resources. Thank you all for sharing!

David Graichen

DAVID GRAICHEN teaches Instrumental Music at Marshwood High School in South Berwick

Before school went digital my band students were working on pieces in small ensembles. We were doing this as a “Music in Our Schools Month” project and we were close to completion. I decided that despite articles warning of the difficulty we would try to make separate recordings and edit them together. I want to give my students a sense of working in an ensemble even when we cannot be together. There are many youtube videos showing you how to use programs by adobe, apple, a cappella, and others to complete this task. Each student got a metronome track for their piece and recorded their part and submitted it through google classroom. Thanks to the support of our RSU#35 Superintendent Mr. Caverly and Brian Carroll (our driver) we loaded the district trailer and delivered everything from a piccolo to a 4.3 octave marimba to students at their homes so they could play again.  With the help of a parent, student, and my student teacher Christopher Ciaglo we are working to edit the recordings together and hope to able to post them at the beginning of May. Normalcy and recognizing the connection music has for my students is very important.

David created THIS VIDEO so students would be reminded of school and to communicate how much he misses them.

David and Brian moving the marimba in to the student’s home.

Kate Smith

KATE SMITH teaches at Central School in South Berwick

I teach 389 PreK through third-grade students and I miss every single one. If there is anything I’ve learned from this pandemic, it is that there is no one, easy way to stay connected with students. I needed offline, synchronous and asynchronous opportunities in order to reach as many kids as possible. In addition to sending home Bingo cards with musical activities, I also record and upload videos on my website and send singing telegrams/musical messages to the teachers to forward to their students. Sometimes these musical messages are sung, other times I  dance (like when I taped glowsticks to myself and danced in the dark to “I’ve Got to Move It”), or lip sync with puppets. During vacation, the Physical Education teacher and I hosted a virtual dance party that had 75 families and 12 staff. Starting this week, we will co-teach 30-minute zoom classes with themes like Minute to Win It, Playground Games and Handclaps, and Beat in My Feet.

Kate created THIS SINGING TELEGRAM for her five first grade classes and this very fun lip sync singing telegram below.

BRYAN KILLOUGH (aka Mr. K) teaches Pre-K through 3 at Eliot Elementary School

Bryan has a YouTube channel where he posts amazing teaching videos that he has created for his students. Videos called PATIENCE which teaches the importance of patience, The Beat Song which teaches the concept of Tempo, JS Bach since Eliot Elementary School’s musician of the month of May is JS Bach, and one of my favorites is May is the Month of Maying which is about, you guessed it May – embedded below.

KRIS BISSON teaches music at Marshwood Middle School

This has been a very unique experience for all, but learning prevails. My hope is that my students know how much I care about their learning and their well-being and that we are all in this together. Classroom walls or other walls, we are still connected and creating.

Kris Bisson

Below are some of the learning platforms that she has found successful.

• FLIPGRID : With Chorus and Guitar/Ukulele Class being performance-based work, I have been using this with great success!
• Students create videos of themselves (I’ve been doing both “public” and “private” for every assignment) and I can grade and comment (Typed is my preference, or you can video respond). Students can see each other and respond to videos – always positive, and a large part of our Chorus Family Support.
• PADLET : a chance for students to share personal reflections/responses and for others to share conversation with them. Precise, helps keep thoughts focused.
• ZOOM and MEET : of course, such a great resource!!!!!!!!!
• HANGOUTS : for students to ask a question quickly and briefly. So handy. Sometimes starts the need to ZOOM / MEET.
• GOOGLE CLASSROOM : My organizational tool for sharing all classroom needs, responsibilities, videos, pdfs, you name it!
• LOOM : I can video and share my picture and voice while sharing my screen to teach the lesson. SO user-friendly, and students are accustomed to the teacher teaching the lesson before completing it for themselves. LOVE this!

Language of Music

Amazing Grace

The annual Manitoba Music Educators “Tempo Conference” didn’t disappoint when keynote speaker Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser had 600 Music Specialists stand and sing “Amazing Grace” on “Ah”. This is what happens when you “speak the language of music”.

 

Congrats Waterville High School

Heritage Festival, New York City

Recently Waterville High School musicians traveled to New York City for the Heritage Festival. Not only did they come home with awards but they had a chance to experience part of the culture that New York has to offer.

Chaperone and Waterville High School nurse Ann Bouchard describes the pride in the music students and their trip to New York City:

“So lucky to have been part of this amazing experience with exceptional musicians and people—-our students!!!  Colleagues and chaperones were top notch.  Thanks to our music educators for giving the gift of music to our children and students and for enriching our lives with their gifts.  As was said at the festival, “The arts make our world civilized.”  Thank goodness something does and these educators and musicians have a hand in the civilizing of our part of the world”.

Sue Barre with her son and daughter, juniors at Waterville High School

Waterville music educator Sue Barre words to school staff on the return from New York:

“We had a wonderful few days. First and foremost we would like to share the compliments we received on how polite and well behaved our students are. Kudos to all at WSHS for that”!

DESCRIPTION OF THE EXPERIENCE

Ensembles are adjudicated on a scale that is used nationwide at Heritage Festivals. Student ensembles were from California, Florida, Maryland, Ohio, and Maine. This included 700-800 students.

Gold awards indicates scores of 90-100. The Waterville ensembles that earned Gold ratings:

• chorus
• sound check
• strings
• band
• jazz band

Four of the six awards presented for Outstanding Musicianship were presented to Waterville students

• Alex Lecrone – sound check
• Soren Nyhus – strings
• Natalia Fuentes – string
• Aubrey Fossett – band and jazz band

Each school was asked to nominate a student who not only is a strong musician but also a good school citizen, scholar, and overall person. Selected for this award from the entire festival was Waterville’s Soren Nyhus!

• Best overall Band Program – Waterville
• Best overall String Program – Waterville
• Best overall Instrumental Program – Waterville
• Adjudicators Award for Concert Band – average of 92 or more on scores – Superior Performance
• Festival Award for Best Program – Waterville

Congratulations to the Waterville Music educators for their outstanding teaching and preparing students to participate in this event!

• Sue Barre – Band and department chair
• Ciara Hargrove – Vocals
• Graybert Beacham – Strings

Music Teacher Mentoring Course

New England Institute

If you are a veteran music teacher who is considering mentoring a new music teacher (or perhaps you already are), and you want to learn some best practice strategies to be the best mentor you can be, we’re excited to announce an opportunity to earn 4.5 CEUs in a brand new course EDPU 620: Mentoring New Teachers in the Music Classroom.

There is such a need for strong, quality mentorships in music education for new teachers, and we all know how difficult it can be to navigate those first years in the profession.  So why not get up on the latest research and practice for teacher mentorship, take the course, and get your recertification credits at the same time?

The course is taught by Sue Barre, music educator from Waterville High School, and most of you know Sue from her role as President of the Maine Music Educators Association. The online course is designed to run for the school year.  It starts October 30 and runs through May 28.  You have until October 30 to enroll. If you know someone who might be interested, please share this information with them. The cost is $790 for 4.5 CEUs and we will accept purchase orders from your school district.  For more information on the course, and to join us for this exciting opportunity, visit our website.

There are other courses, to consider as well.

If you are just getting on board with Assessment, or need a great refresher, Jake Sturtevant is teaching Assessment in the Music Classroom, K-12 starting April 2 through June 11, 2018.  This is also an online course for 4.5 CEUs.  The teacher reviews for Jake’s classes have been fantastic!

Technology for Educators is yet another offering you can use for recertification AND get a little more tech savvy as you go.

Courses on Managing Classroom Behavior, Bullying Prevention and Gifted Talented endorsement courses are also available. Learn more on the New England Institute for Teacher Education website about the courses listed above and their other courses.

Another MALI Teacher Recognized

Congratulations to Marshwood Middle School’s Cathy Locke and Kris Bisson

The Charles S. Hatch Post ’79 awarded Cathy Locke and Kris Bisson the “Americanism Award” in memory of past Post Commander Mark Pilgrim from Berwick, Maine. The award was given in recognition and appreciation for patriotism, citizenship and dedication in honoring our local Military Veterans and First Responders for the past 16 years at the “In Honor of Our Veterans” ceremony at Marshwood Middle School.

Kris is the Marshwood Middle School music educator and a Maine Arts Leadership Initiative (MALI) Teacher Leader! YAHOOOO!

Kris and the work of MALI Teaching Artist Leader Brian Evans-Jones was highlighted on September 25 on this blog with a description of a collaborative project they have underway..

Spruce Mountain High School

Rocking out

Spruce Mountain High School in Jay with students attending from Jay, Livermore, and Livermore Falls. Thank you to music educator and Maine Arts Leadership Initiative teacher leader, Dianne Fenlason for sharing the work of their students. Rock of Ages is a walk through history and the integral role rock music has played. AMAZING performance!

Master Musician Visits Waterville

Waterville students benefit

Waterville schools had the privilege of hosting Srinivas Krishnan, an Indian Musician, for a week-long residency. The educational experience impacted the 80 members of the high school band, the 40 member chorus and 50 member orchestra. In addition, Srini worked with the 38, grades 4-8 elementary and middle school gifted and talented students from AOS 92 (Waterville, Winslow, and Vassalboro).

While in Waterville Krishnan, taught the students about music from other cultures, cooked and treated them to Indian food and told stories. As often happens when providing unique learning opportunities for students, he enlightened the students about life and humanity. Scrini’s goal is to work in small towns to share his culture with students who would not otherwise be able to have access.

Not only was this a learning opportunity for students but when teaching artists spend time in schools, teachers benefit as well. It was an initial contact that Scrini had with Sam Lyons while he was at USM that lead to this residency. It was evident that Scrini impacted Sam and music educators Sue Barre and Ciara Hargrove as well.

Ciara, Scrini, Sue, Sam

I joined Maine DOE visual and performing arts specialist Beth Lambert for the culminating performance at Waterville Senior High School and it was evident that the impact Scrini had on the music program and students during the week was enormous. In addition to the performance that I attended the community packed the auditorium on one evening that a day school was canceled.

Playing Tablas with high school students

Srinivas Krishnan who goes by Scrini, is a Master Percussionist from India and has been trained under four master musicians in India. He gave his first solo recital at the age of 16 and was featured as a percussionist at the University of North Texas at the age of 21. Srinivas performs on the tabla, the ghatam, the Middle Eastern dumbek, the Irish Bodhran, and the mridangam. He has degrees in areas of the science, engineering and management from Miami University. You can read his entire biography at THIS LINK.

Ciara and Scrini singing

The English department chair, Katie Dunn sent the following note to the members of the music department Sue Barre, Ciara Hargrove, and Sam Lyons:
Thank you for such a heartwarming cultural experience on Friday. I was overwhelmed to see so many of our students singing and playing music with Scrini Krishnan. Over a quarter of the school was on that stage! And they had embraced this Indian rhythm and sound that is so different than what I imagine they usually hear and play. It was awesome to see and hear the results.

Check out a segment of the performance Scrini directed with the audience by CLICKING HERE.

Amy Calder from the Kennebec Journal attended the Friday concert and she describes the experience very well in the article at THIS LINK.

I think the experience was best summed up by accomplished sophomore musician Soren Nyhus, 15, a cellist in the school orchestra. “We all work to make the music better with the notes, the rhythms and all that stuff. Working with Scrini taught me that music is more than working on the notes. Music has the ability to speak to all of us through the heart, music is our common language.”

CLICK HERE for a glimpse at a rehearsal with Scrini that lead up to the performances.

CLICK HERE for video footage of the afternoon at Waterville High School.

Sue Barre, department chair, hopes that Scrini will return and involved more learners as part of a Global Rhythms Concert. If you’d like more information please contact Sue at sbarre@aos92.org.

Who Are They?: Bay Chambers, Part 2

Odeon

This blog post is part of a series called Who Are They? where information is provided for the Maine Arts Ed blog readers to learn about community organizations and institutions that provide educational opportunities in the arts. You will learn that they are partnering with other organizations and schools to extend learning opportunities, not supplant.

Bay Chamber Concerts and Music School is the first organization being highlighted. Located in Rockport, they provide rich music opportunities for students of all ages in the mid-coast area. Monica Kelly is the Executive Director and you can learn more at http://www.baychamberconcerts.org/. This post was written by Monica about their program called Odeon.

Marti Stone photo

I don’t really know how it happened. I am not a strings player. My children weren’t either. But somehow I managed to found Odeon, a community string orchestra in 2000 in mid-coast Maine.

I had been involved with Bay Chamber Concerts for four years as a trustee and kept hearing about the concerns that there were no string ensemble programs in our area and the Next Generation program, a summer camp for Maine youth interested in playing chamber music together, was struggling to find participants. At the same time, my three young boys were attending the Riley School, an arts-focused K-9 school in Rockport and I was chair of the parent committee. The then director, Glenna Plaisted, a true visionary educator, said to me that she thought we should start an orchestra at Riley. Well, the truth was that the school didn’t have enough students to make that happen, so I convinced her to partner with me in writing a grant to the MBNA Foundation, which at that time was funding a lot of arts education programs in our community. Low and behold we were awarded a small sum which we used to hire our first conductor, the amazing Augusto Salazar. Not only was he an amazing musician, he was willing to drive to Rockport each week from Kittery because he believed so much in what we were doing.

Marti Stone photo

So on a cold January night in 2000, eight children, ages 8-18 showed up to audition for the Odeon Ensemble. We had three quite advanced students, and a handful of intermediate and beginning ones to boot. Kindly a couple of the parents who played stringed instruments agreed to sit in and help out. At the debut concert held that spring, the first work on the program was called “Warm-up – the scale in G major”!!!

Quickly the program began to grow and within 5 years we were up to 40 members in three ensembles. Some of the students at that time were quite advanced and we experienced some glorious moments of music before they all graduated and went off to schools like Oberlin, Wellesley, and Tufts. And then, in 2006 we were invited to merge with Bay Chamber Concerts.

Throughout the years Odeon has evolved and the groupings have changed. Our latest configuration is as follows: Allegro, for beginning young string musicians; Symphony, for intermediate youth in strings, winds, brass and piano; and the Adult Ensemble. We perform at least two formal concerts per year and seek opportunities to play in assisted living facilities, schools, etc. We even did a flash mob in Hannaford’s and Reny’s one year!

It has been one of the most rewarding parts of my life to foster this program and see it evolve, grow and adapt to the people who make it happen. I am grateful to the musicians who have led Odeon over the years: Augusto Salazar, Gilda Joffe, Marshunda Smith, Deirdre McClure, Nate Martin and new to this spring, Sarah Glenn, for their contributions in building a community orchestra for mid-coast Maine. And I cannot write a complete story of Odeon’s history without mentioning two supporters from the board of Bay Chamber who have given their hearts and souls to the ensembles because of their belief in the value of being music makers; Eleanor Poe Barlow and Caroline E. Seamans.

University Singers

Unique student opportunity

Invitation to a Free Lunch Time Concert.  The University of Maine Singers under the direction of Dr. Dennis Cox and accompanied by Dr. Laura Artesani will visit the Camden Hills Regional High School for a short concert on Tuesday, March 11th at 12:15 – 1:00 PM.  There is plenty of space in the Strom auditorium, please attend and hear this excellent college ensemble!

There is also a chance that there will be a short male a cappella workshop from 1 – 1:30, if there is enough interest from area middle school/high schools.  If interested, please contact Kim Murphy at Kim_Murphy@fivetowns.net ASAP and let her know.

The University Singers will be on tour during this time. The locations where they will be performing are listed below. All concerts are scheduled to begin at 7:00 PM, free and open to the public.

• March 10, First Baptist Church, Bar Harbor
• March 11, Owls Head Transportation Museum, Owls Head
• March 12, First Parish Church of Christ, Saco
• March 12, Winnisquam Regional High School, Tilton, NH
• March 14, Lasell College, Newton, MA

 

Summer Youth Music Camp

UMaine program

Orono, Maine — Registration is underway for Maine Summer Youth Music (MSYM) Camp at the University of Maine.

Junior Camp, for students in grades 5-8, is July 13-18 and Senior Camp, for students in grades 8-12, is July 19-27. Eighth-grade students may attend either or both camps.

Campers study with UMaine faculty and public school music teachers while staying in a residence hall on the Orono campus. Vocal and instrumental opportunities include symphonic band, jazz band, string ensemble, chorus, and musical theater, along with master classes and evening concerts. Senior campers may work with Joan deAlbuquerque, guest conductor from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

Registration may be done online with a debit card, credit card or electronic check, or through the mail. For more information about the camp, as well as the cost and scholarships, visit http://umaine.edu/spa/summer-music-camp-msym/.

About the University of Maine
The University of Maine, founded in Orono in 1865, is the state’s premier public university. It is among the most comprehensive higher education institutions in the Northeast and attracts students from across the U.S. and more than 65 countries. It currently enrolls 11,247 total undergraduate and graduate students who can directly participate in groundbreaking research working with world-class scholars. The University of Maine offers doctoral degrees in 35 fields, representing the humanities, sciences, engineering and education; master’s degrees in roughly 70 disciplines; 90 undergraduate majors and academic programs; and one of the oldest and most prestigious honors programs in the U.S. The university promotes environmental stewardship on its campus, with substantial efforts aimed at conserving energy, recycling and adhering to green building standards in new construction. For more information about UMaine, visit umaine.edu.

Contact
For more information and application – Monique Hashey, 207.581.4721, Monique.Hashey@umit.maine.edu