| Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet | February 4, 2012 |
| Home » Carondelet Music Center » CMC News Briefs |
Carondelet Music Center News Briefs
Ruth Pelham Makes Music in Intergenerational Conert
A special afternoon was shared by all who participated in this wonderful Intergenerational Concert as part of Carondelet Music Center's 20th Anniversary. The event, underwritten by Ann Marie St. John-Grover, was a special treat for the Provincial House Community and the Music Center families. An estimated 125 students and their families with Senior Sisters in residence at the Provincial House participated in the music-making event. Ruth Pelham is known throughout the Capital Region for her programs of participatory song and dance. Intersecting the mission of the Sisters of St. Joseph who sponsor Carondelet Music Center, Pelham’s music focuses on building peaceful communities and empowering individuals to be responsible citizens in a world greatly in need of hope and possibility.
Pumpkin Playground returns!
Our third annual Pumpkin Playground on Friday night, October 28th was a great success. Over 100 students and their families participated in this annual event. The Zweig-Corbin family were thrilled to win the Woodstock Chime raffle. Congratulations!
FRIENDS HELPING FRIENDS DAY AT BOSCOV'S: October 4th
Once again the Music Center participated in the special Friends Helping Friends Day at Boscov's. Students and their families/friends who purchased a $5.00 coupon for a special 25% discount coupon for this special fund-raiser raised over $800 for the Music Center. A special "thank you" to one and all for your efforts!
Music Center Strings Teacher Tours Italy
One of the joys of playing an instrument is the opportunity to travel and perform with an orchestra. Touring Italy with its unique blend of art and music is the best tour of all!
This past summer, Barbara Brothers, our Strings teacher, toured Northern Italy with the Varno International Chamber Orchestra for three weeks. The members flew into the Marco Polo Airport near Venice. During the first week, the orchestra played in Venice and Verona. Mrs. Brothers commented that, "One of the highlights of this first week was playing on the steps of a mansion designed by Palladioin Vincenza." During the second week, the American musicians joined forces with the Dohnanyi Orchestra, one of the top orchestras in Budapest, to perform the Verdi Requiem. This second leg of the tour found the orchestra in the picturesque towns near and in Perugia. Finally, the third week brought the chamber group to the Spoleto Festival dei 2 Mondi. Housed in a convent, they performed music of Bach, Elgar, Hindemith, and Tchaikovsky.
Mrs. Brothers explains, "Touring a country while giving concerts makes you feel as if you are a part of the country--if only for a short time. This was truly an unforgetable experience!"
Music Center Student Selected for String Orchestra
Congratulations to Robert Krupitza, student of Music Center teacher, Barbara Brothers, for his successful audition for the Northeast String Orchestra (http://www.nsorch.org/). Robset is among 70 young people, ages 7 to 14, who enjoy membership in NSO. The Orchestra provides young string players with opportunities to learn the fundamentals of ensemble playing and to develop their musical and technical abilities for ensemble playing in a non-competitive, enjoyable and supportive learning environment.
Music Center Students Participate in NYSSMA
Isabel Rodrigues, piano student of Mary Alice Senecal, and three string students of Barbara Brothers, violinists Tommy Yoon and Robert Krupitza, and cellist Kelly Yoon, each received an Outstanding in their New York State School Music Association auditions held in May. Congratulations for such a wonderful achievement! Your hard work is certainly reflected in this highest rating.
Sister Patricia to present paper at University of Exeter in England
Sister Patricia Ann St. John, executive director of Carondelet Music Center and adjunct professor of music at Columbia University, has had a paper accepted for the prestigious RIME (Research in Music Education) Conference (http://education.exeter.ac.uk/pages.php?id=218#maincontent), hosted each year by the University of Exeter in England. Sister Patricia’s paper, Preschoolers Banding Together, uses the conceptual framework of music as an innate expression in early childhood. Through this framework, Sister Patricia set up an environment where children might find and make musical meaning, discovering musical skills and concepts quite naturally and intuitively. Sister Patricia set up this environment at the Carondelet Music Center in June 2009, creating a week-long Instrument-Play Workshop for preschoolers as a summer camp experience. The schedule was quite organic, and the activities were emergent, based on the children's response to the material and where their interest would lead the participants. The children explored a variety of instruments, experimenting with texture and timbre, sonority and sensation. By week's end, children performed solos on various percussion instruments (Bass xylophone and African drum were the favorites.), formed small-group ensembles as they found sounds created by peers that complimented their own sounds, made drawings of their sounds to create a “score,” engaged in critical thinking by arranging these sounds sequentially and choosing the instrument on which to perform it.
The end result was a group composition which the students performed for parents in the final class. Sister Patricia analyzed 217 video clips that were recorded in the five hour-long sessions. One of the most interesting findings in the study was the experimentation by three and four-year olds with melody and the keen awareness of peers' sound-making. In the first class, after having explored the four instrument “centers” (wood, metal, drums and barred instruments such as xylophones, glockenspiels, etc.), Sister Patricia asked the children what they had discovered. One child exclaimed, “I found a band!” The child’s response surprised Sister Patricia and offered insight not only into the child's keen perception and awareness of others but also of his interpretation of Sister Patricia’s intended curricular task.
Sister Patricia delivered the paper in April at the University of Exeter in England.
Music Center Students Selected for String Orchestra
Congratulations to Tommy Yoon (age 10), violinist, and Kelly Yoon (age 8), cellist, students of Music Center teacher, Barbara Brothers, for their successful audition for the Northeast String Orchestra (http://www.nsorch.org/). The Yoons are among 70 young people, ages 7 to 14, who enjoy membership in NSO. The Orchestra provides young string players with opportunities to learn the fundamentals of ensemble playing and to develop their musical and technical abilities for ensemble playing in a non-competitive, enjoyable and supportive learning environment.
Music Student donates new BOSE CD PLAYER to Music Center
Katie Butler, a sophomore at Shaker, has been a music center student for several years and a girl scout since 6th grade. To fulfill part of a special awards project, Katie needed to organize and implement a project that would impact a community. Katie chose to focus her project on Carondelet Music Center: due to budget cuts, we have been unable to purchase a much-needed new CD player for one of our Kindermusik rooms. Katie organized two separate events to raise funds for the new BOSE. Surely, many children and their families would benefit from Katie's efforts; this special project would have far reaching impact on our musical community at Carondelet.
For her first event, Katie conducted a babysitting night, arranging sitters for Music Center families and friends. Her second event was a Jewelry Sale Party. In all, Katie raised over $500 to purchase the new stereo system for the Music Center. Sister Patricia and Katie purchased the stereo together at the Bose Store in Colonie Center on July 28th and set it up together in the Kindermusik Room. Special thanks to Mary Alice Senecal, Katie's piano teacher at Carondelet, who served as her mentor throughout the project, and to Katie's mom who was a great support!
Thank you, Katie, from all of us at Carondelet Music Center!
Former piano student's son now enrolled in CMC as a toddler
Matthew Adamo was 4-years-old when he began taking piano lessons from his neighbor, Patti St. John. That was in 1976 when Sister Patricia was a freshman at The College of Saint Rose majoring in Music Education; little did she know then that her career would lead to early childhood music education! After completing a postdoctoral fellowship in Chicago, Adamo, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Albany Medical Center, moved back to the Capital Region and enrolled his 2-year-old son, Christian, at Carondelet Music Center for the Kindermusik toddler program. Meanwhile, dad still enjoys music-making, jamming with friends and colleagues. Matthew and his wife, Karen, are expecting their second child in June!
Sister Patricia publishes chapter in book on Creativity
Sister Patricia was recently part of a symposium at the American Educational Research Association (May in Denver, CO) where she presented a paper based on her chapter in a newly published book on Vygotsky and Creativity: A socio-cultural approach to play, meaning-making, and the arts (Connery, C., John-Steiner, V., & Marjonovic-Shane, A., Eds.). Sister Patricia's contribution to this already acclaimed text is entitled, Crossing scripts and swapping rifts: Preschoolers make musical meaning. Sister Patricia explains that the study involved preschoolers' instrument free-play at Carondelet Music Center. This is her third chapter contribution in as many books on various topics related to Music and Music Education.
Main Provincal House Number (518) 783-3500 • Fax (518) 783-5209
All Artwork Copyright © 2008 Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet