Glen Urquhart School Music K – 5

Glen Urquhart values the special joy of making music together and strives to inspire students to become lifelong music-makers. All students become active musicians who sing, play the recorder, and participate in instrumental and choral ensembles; literate musicians who understand, read, and write the written language of music; listening musicians who discern, understand, and respond to the music they hear; and world musicians who understand and appreciate music and the role of music in our own and other cultures.

The Gift of Song: 春天在哪里

POSTED BY: Patty Clark

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Wenjing was a recent guest in  GUS music classes.  A Salem State education major from China, Wenjing was observing American music classrooms and teachers for a required paper on American music education.  While here she joined with several classes as they prepared for the May Day dance.  This inspired her to return to the school to experience the May Day celebration.

A gracious guest, Wenjing brought a colorful Chinese ornament as a gift, but I requested a bigger gift – the gift of a song!  I asked her to bring a song that children in China would know and love.  “Where Is the Spring” is the song that she brought, and she sang it for several classes, giving them an opportunity to try out the Chinese pronunciations.  The children shared many American songs with her, and Wenjing was surprised and delighted to have a 1st Grade class sing a Chinese song for her they had learned for Chinese New Year.  The simple sharing of songs between cultures created a wonderful bond between one who entered as a guest but who left as a friend!

Poem in Your Pocket: Song in Your Heart

POSTED BY: Patty Clark

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The upcoming “Poem in Your Pocket Day” inspired the GUS Chorus concert this past week.  Students recited and sang poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and the performance featured  vocal solos and ensembles, and piano and flute accompaniment.  Performed first for K-3 students in the Nance Assembly Space, the Chorus then travelled to the Brooksby Village Chapel, where they delighted an appreciative audience.  The children’s beautiful voices added an extra dimension to the poetry and brought the lyrics to life!

GUS Has Talent! March 2 Lower School Talent Sharing

POSTED BY: Patty Clark

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What do you get if you take 50 students, 37 acts, and one hour?  The Lower School Talent Sharing, of course!  And what a sharing it was.  The afternoon which started and ended with tap dancers included pianists, violinists, guitarists, flutists, clarinetists, saxophonists, cellists, recorder players, poets, singers, gymnasts, martial artists, fencers, and a garage band!  Each student shared a brief sampling of talent that he or she had been working on outside of school and delighted the packed, polite, and attentive audience of parents and supportive classmates.  Yes, GUS does have talent!

Valentine Caroling: A Worthwhile Tradition

POSTED BY: Patty Clark

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For the past several years, the Glen Urquhart 4th and 5th Grade Chorus have spent the winter months preparing a set of “Valentine Carols” and taking them on the road to area nursing homes and retirement centers.  This year’s program featured “Love Is Like A Boomerang,” beautiful harmonies of “Scarborough Fair”, an Elvis impersonator and a rock band in”Valentine Rock,” and a fiddler in “Sourwood Mountain.”  The students also shared a set of more traditional sing-along songs, including, “You Are My Sunshine,” “Down in the Valley,” “Skinnamarink,” and “I Love You a Bushel and a Peck.”  After this year’s performance which was presented at “Longwood Rehabilitation Center” in Beverly, several students discussed the difficulty of performing for an audience when you don’t receive a lot of feedback.  Others found it sad that some residents were in wheelchairs and walkers.  Others were disturbed when patients were wheeled through the lobby on stretchers during the performance!  However, every student concurred that the performance was a valuable experience that should be continued because they recognized how much the residents fully enjoyed their music and their visit – even if they were unable to fully express it.  Many students count this as their most favorite and the most important performance of the year precisely because of the audience.  Valentine Caroling:  It’s a keeper!

It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s the Kindergarten!!!

POSTED BY: Patty Clark

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Anyone walking outside of the Music Room this morning heard bird sounds emanating from within!  The Kindergarten music curriculum features songs, music, and activities with an animal theme, including “The Carnival of the Animals” by Saint Saens, and today we had a special live performance of “Voliere” (The Aviary).  After showing the students a fife, a student flute, and a professional flute, Kindergarten parent, Leslee Peterman, performed the virtuosic selection while the children listened raptly.  She played once again as the students responded with high, fast scarf movements through the room.    The students then shared their own bird music with Leslee, performing a 3-part bird rhythm ensemble with rhythm sticks, glockenspiels, and scarves.  What a treat!

I LOVE Student Performances!!! (A Reflection on Solstice and Grand Friends’ Day)

POSTED BY: Patty Clark

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How is it possible that Grand Friends’ Day and Solstice performances for this academic year have already passed us by?  One of the amazing and frustrating aspects of music is that hours and weeks of rehearsal are poured into preparing for each performance, and then it’s over and done.  Poof!  Just like that!  But the great performances make you smile, laugh, cry, or sigh while listening and watching, and also while remembering.  So it is with this year’s fall performances.  They are now past, but what wonderful memories!

At Glen Urquhart students perform confidently and with joy, and they create beautiful music.  Students recognize the culmination of their hard work and preparation, and they revel in the opportunity to share with their audience.  Perhaps even more importantly, a wonderful sense of community pervades each performance.  Students listen raptly, and they applaud enthusiastically to encourage one another.

I LOVE student performances, for they showcase not only talent, skill, preparation, and beauty, but also courage, pride, humor, zest, and so much more!

Lexington Symphony Visits GUS

POSTED BY: Lisa Kent

Beautiful music wafted down the halls of the upper school building recently as four members of the Lexington Symphony performed for lower school students in the Nance Assembly Room.  Their visit provided a prelude to the upcoming “Orchestrating Kids through Classics” performance by the Lexington Symphony in Lexington next week.

This year will be the first that Glen Urquhart third, fourth, and fifth grade students will attend a performance by the Lexington Symphony.  Students have attended Boston Symphony and Cape Ann Symphony concerts in past years, but this year’s performance will be unique in that it will be a dramatic review of music from the last 500 hundred years to the present.

If this recent performance is any indication, the students are in for a real treat.  Each member of the quartet demonstrated selections on his instrument, the violin, viola, clarinet, or tuba, using stories and humor to impart an understanding of and appreciation for each instrument.  One musician related orchestral music to movies and video games.  Another told stories of Paginini’s excessive ego, and the tuba player shared his image of liquid chocolate flowing forth from the bell of the tuba. The students alternated between rapt listening, eager questioning, and hearty laughter.  Not only was their music beautiful…these musicians were FUN!

We are very fortunate to live in a part of the world with high caliber musical organizations that are dedicated to bringing music to youth.  If you would like more information about the Lexington Symphony, please check out www.lexingtonsymphony.org

3rd Grade Excitement

POSTED BY: Patty Clark

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Hearing about the recorder makes 3rd Graders smile!!!

This has been a big week for 3rd Graders! On Monday, master recorder player, David Coffin, introduced them to a variety of recorders and early wind instruments in his presentation, “Music from the King’s Court.” David’s energetic performance enthralled the students and heightened anticipation for their own recorder study!
David also shared an exciting new recorder app he has created to assist young recorder players in a fun, engaging, contemporary manner. For more information about David Coffin and his recorders, please check out www.davidcoffin.com . Click on “Ace Recorder” in the upper right hand corner to check out his recorder app.
David’s parting words to the students were that someday he would have to pass on his wonderful recorder collection to a worthy player who practices a lot. On Thursday, recorders go home. Who knows, perhaps one of this year’s students will one day become that lucky player!

Ask a 2nd Grader!

POSTED BY: Patty Clark

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“Solo y Canto” performers Rosi and Brian Amador accompanied themselves on bongos and guitar during their recent performance for Glen Urquhart students. They also played a variety of small percussion instruments with Latin origins, including the guiro, the claves, and the cowbell. Coincidentally, GUS 2nd Graders had just successfully completed an activity in music class, in which they had to identify those instruments and four others by sound only, and not by sight! They will be continuing their study of timbre (sound quality) throughout the year, culminating in a spring unit on the instruments of the orchestra and “Peter and the Wolf.” So, if you have any questions about musical instruments, ask a 2nd Grader!

Poor John Henry!

POSTED BY: Patty Clark

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You may have heard lively music about John Henry emanating from the Music Room. The tune tells the tale of a legendary contest of a railroad man and a steam drill. Unfortunately, as the story goes, John Henry won the contest but lost his life in the process. The singers in the 4th and 5th Grade Chorus were saddened to hear of his fate, but they do love singing the song about him! You will hear this song and more at the Friday, November 5, Grand Friends Day Assembly.