February's Composer of the Month

 This month's composer is Johann Pachelbel! He was born over 363 years ago and his music is still played today! He is most well known for his wedding processional-Canon in D, but he has many other beautiful works that we explored as well. Ask your child about his life and be amazed at what they learned :)
Canon in D

Toccata in E Minor

Singet dem Herrn

 Bonus funny video
 

January's Composer of the Month

In January, 3rd-6th grade learned about a wonderful composer, Fanny Mendelssohn! We learned that growing up in the 1800's while being a woman, presented Fanny with countless obstacles she had to overcome in order to be a successful musical composer and performer. The kids enjoyed hearing stories about her being a child prodigy and even an awkward moment with the Queen!
Swan Song/Swanenlied

The Year/Das Jahr-October

Italien/Italy

 

November's Composer of the Month

 This month's composer is Nathaniel Stookey! He is famous for doing things a little differently-whether that be writing music for a humorous murder-mystery with famous children's author Lemony Snicket, making an orchestra completely out of junk from a dump, or being inspired to compose by a vintage arcade-he does it all!
The Composer is Dead

Junkestra: Mvt. 3

String Quartet #2: I. Chaser

September's Composer of the Month

 The kids think this month's composer is one cool guy! Michael Giacchino is well known for being a video game, television, and film composer! This month we've focused on how much music effects a story and it's emotion-which is why music is SO important in movies. Students have learned lots of new vocab words like film, motive/theme, soundtrack, and more!

Married Life from Up

 The Glory Days from The Incredibles

                                     *Watch for The Incredibles at 6 minutes!

Jurassic World Theme

This movie is too new to have any accessible video clips so we imagined our own to the soundtrack!

April's Composer of the Month

 This month we met a man who was not only an acclaimed American composer, pianist, and music lecturer, but a famous conductor as well!! The kids enjoyed learning about Leonard Bernstein and how versatile he was. We reviewed important music vocab like conductor, genre, overture, musical, and others. It was fun to see how passionate he was about bringing music to everyone with his Young People's Concerts. What a great last composer of the year!
Candide Overture

 Maria from West Side Story

 I Hate Music: Cycle of 5 Kid Songs

March's Composer of the Month

 This month we dived head-first into the amazing world of jazz and the kids LOVED it! There are so many great jazz composers and musicians, but perhaps the most influential and talented one is this month's composer-Duke Ellington! Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer (1000+ pieces), pianist, and bandleader of jazz orchestras with a career spanning over 50 years. We enjoyed listening to and learning some of the major differences of jazz and other genres. Students even got to try improvising on instruments and scatting with some of the tracks!
Take the A Train (Billy Strayhorn collaboration)

C Jam Blues

 It Don't Mean a Thing

February's Composer of the Month

This month's composer is one of the oldest known composers of all time, dating back over 900 years ago!  Hildegard of Bingen was an extraordinary 12^th century nun, missionary, prophet and an expert in many subjects. She is known for her work as a composer, writer, philosopher, poet, playwright, linguist, scientist, physician, and more. One of the most remarkable women from the Medieval era. Hildegard transcended gender, status, and social norms and restrictions to become one of the most famous people of her day and continues to inspire today. We loved learning about life in the Medieval time period and how her music differs drastically from ours today.
 O Aeterne Deus

 O Jerusalem

 O Frondens Virga 
 

January's Composer of the Month

This month's composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, is considered to be one of the most influential composers of all time! Bach was born during the Baroque time period in Germany and studied violin, harpsichord, and organ. He married twice and had 20 children in all, but sadly only 9 lived past childhood. At one point in his career, Bach attempted to quit his job working for a duke and was thrown in jail for a month! He used that time to compose music. Near the end of his life he started going blind and died from a botched eye surgery. In total, Bach composed over 1200 pieces in many genres.

Minuet in G Major

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

Cello Suite No. 1

November's Composer of the Month

What better way to get into the holiday spirit, then with a composer who wrote one of the most popular and performed Christmas-time ballets of all time?! Peter (Pytor) Tchaikovsky has written some of the greatest works of the Romantic Era, including the 1812 Overture, 10 operas, orchestral pieces, but is best known for his famous ballets (The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and more). Tchaikovsky was also the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally and he helped capture the unique sound of Russian music. This month we enjoyed learning dances, cup-passing games, and silly lyrics to our 3 pieces from The Nutcracker!
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

 

 

March of the Toy Soldiers

 Trepak

October's Composer of the Month

 This month's composer is one of my all-time favorite composers! Eric Whitacre is a world-wide phenomenon and Grammy-winning American composer. He has written 100+ works and is one of the most popular composers alive. He is best known for his choral works, but he writes both choral and instrumental music. Whitacre is known for combining odd blends of notes to create cluster chords and dividing the ensemble into as many as 33 parts at one time! He is a great example of working hard to accomplish great things-he entered college not knowing how to read music and when he graduated he was accepted into Julliard (one of the most prestigious music schools in the world) for his masters degree! Whitacre has also embraced modern technology and is the only composer to put together a "virtual choir." Ask your child what that means :) The last one consisted of over 8000 videos from singers in 101 different countries!

 

 

 

In college, we skyped Eric Whitacre!

Cloudburst

 

October

Bonus Video: October arranged for choir-Alleluia

 Water Night with the Virtual Choir

September's Composer of the Month

 If you've ever seen the movies Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Father of the Bride, Forrest Gump, Parent Trap, Back to the Future trilogy, Stuart Little, Lilo and Stitch, Polar Express, Night at the Museum, Captain America, The Avengers, or the Croods (and 100 more!) then you've heard the brilliant film music of Alan Silvestri! Behind every good movie, there is an even better music score. We talked a lot this month about if movie music is done well, you don't even notice it's there. It's job is not to be distracting, but instead help to further the storyline, emotion, and mood of the scene. Silvestri does just that and so much more. Ask your kid about their new vocab words-solo, genre, and vibrato!

Each week we studied a new piece Silvestri composed:

Main Theme from Back to the Future

 Forrest Gump Suite

 Believe from Polar Express

August's Composer of the Month

 We kicked this school year off with one of the most famous composers of all time-Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!! Although he lived almost 3oo years ago, everyone today still knows his name and has most likely heard his music. Mozart is one of the few true child prodigies, meaning he was a musical genius at a very young age. He began playing piano and violin at age 4, composing at 5, and performing around the country at 6 years old!

Each week of the month we studied a new composition of his:
A Little Night Music, Allegro

Variations on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

Der Holle Rache from The Magic Flute

April's Composer of the Month

 April's composer of the month is one of my personal favorite ones since he has written musicals such as Sound of Music, Cinderella, South Pacific, Carousel, State Fair, Oklahoma, and many more. Richard Rodgers was an amazing asset to the world of musical theater and his collaboration with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II has forever changed the musical genre as we know it.

In My Own Little Corner from Cinderella

So Long, Farewell from Sound of Music

Surrey With the Fringe on Top from Oklahoma!

March's Composer of the Month

Meet Alan Menken, one of the most acclaimed and famous composers alive today! The kids enjoyed learning about how Menken got his start writing jingles for advertisements and accompanying ballets, but then moved on to writing musicals and film music. He is best known for the two decades he devoted to composing memorable music for Disney films like Beauty and the Beast, Hercules, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Enchanted, Tangled, and so many more!

A Whole New World from Aladdin

Star Spangled Man from Captain America

I've Got a Dream from Tangled

February's Composer of the Month

February's composer was George Frideric Handel!! He is one of the most famous Baroque composers and the kids loved getting to know him. Here are a fun few facts if you can handel it (sorry, couldn't help myself!): he was nicknamed the "Great Bear" due to his size and the way he walked, he worked for King George I of England, he could speak 4 languages, and play 4 instruments. I guarantee you will recognize a few of his pieces!
Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah

:)

Alla Hornpipe from Water Music

Zadok the Priest Coronation Anthem

January's Composer of the Month

January's Composer of the Month was Clara Schumann!! Kids had been begging for a female composer and she proved to be the perfect option. Through Clara, we learned about how difficult it has been for women throughout history to perform in public and compose music due to restrictions from society and the responsibility of taking care of a house and kids. Clara was incredibly talented, hard working, and went above and beyond expectations. Not only did she have her first public performance at the age of 9, she toured all around the countryside, married her husband Robert against her father's wishes, was a devoted mother to 8 children, taught piano, and so much more. Ask your kids what else they learned and loved about Clara!

Scherzo No. 1, Op. 10

Piano Concerto, Op. 7

Die Lorelei

November's Composer of the Month

This month's composer is Antonio Vivaldi! Here's some fun facts that your kid can tell you more about: Vivaldi was born in Italy over 300 years ago, he was the oldest of 9 children, due to his bad asthma he couldn't play outside as a child so instead he learned to play the violin, "The Red Priest" was his nickname since he was a Catholic priest with fiery red hair (although he normally wore a wig), he died a poor person after selling all of his belongings in order to travel to a new job.
His composition we've been studying is The Four Seasons which is separated into four movements (Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter). With each season we've worked on a corresponding Tree Worksheet which allows students to write and draw about what the music makes them feel, think, and hear.

Spring:

Summer: 

Autumn:

 

Winter: 

 

October's Composer of the Month

Edvard Grieg

June 15, 1843 - September 4, 1907
Romantic Period

This month's composer is Norway's national hero! Grieg is to Norway what George Washington is to America and William Shakespeare to England: his country's most celebrated human. Grieg started learning piano at a very young age from his mom, started composing music at age 9, and attended the best music school at 15. He wrote over 150 piano compositions, 140 songs, background music for plays, and much more. We enjoyed studying two of his pieces from the play, Peer Gynt Suite (I bet you recognize them!) and one of his beloved country's folk songs.

Fun facts:
Grieg always carried a little frog statue in his pocket everywhere he went and would rub it before concerts for good luck!
Both him and his wife were shorter than 5 feet tall!

Peer Gynt Suite: Morning Mood

Norwegian Dance No. 2

  Peer Gynt Suite: In the Hall of the Mountain King

September's Composer of the Month

John Williams

2/8/1932-Present

Students absolutely loved September's composer of the month, but that's not surprising since most of the world does! Ask your child what they learned this month and I bet they'll tell you he's written music for some movies you recognize! Some cool facts about Williams is he's written music for over 109 films, had 48 Academy Award nominations, is American, and still alive :) We spent a lot of time discussing how much of an impact music has on the storyline and emotional attachment to movies. If film music is done well, you don't even realize it's there! We hardly ever have enough time to watch the entire video clip during class, so students may enjoy watching the end of these at home.

Olympic Fanfare and Theme:

Star Wars Main Theme:

Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter:

Bonus: 

August's Composer of the Month

Ludwig van Beethoven
December 16, 1770 - March 26, 1827 
Romantic Period

We started the year off with many of the world's favorite composer-Beethoven. Students learned what a composer is, about Beethoven's rough childhood, and how going deaf affected his music. We learned about and listened to his Fifth Symphony, 9th Symphony, and Moonlight Sonata. In order for student's to remember the piece of the day, we listen to it at least twice and in different ways in order to get it stuck in our brains. Technology is fantastic because I can show kids so much more than what I'm able to bring into my classroom like full orchestras and so much more! Students ask me at least once a day if I can give them the web address so they can re-watch videos at home, so I promised I'd put them on my blog. So here they are:

5th Symphony- 

9th Symphony-

Moonlight Sonata-