Thursday, 7 June 2012

Year-end musical celebration!

Last Friday was Umoja Music School's year end concert, featuring performances by all our ensembles. Everyone worked very hard to get ready and the concert was a huge success! I loved seeing how much the violin groups I work with have grown this year, and that was also true for the piano and guitar groups. To give you an idea of the great variety of music, here is the concert program:

Violin level 4: Vivaldi Double Concerto
                    Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?

Violin level 1: Twinkle Twinkle
                    Song of the Wind

Piano level 1: Cuckoo

Piano level 2: Tribute to Umoja (a newly composed piece by one of Danielle's colleagues)
                    You Are My Sunshine

Guitar level 1: Lightly Row
                     Twinkle Twinkle

Conducting class: Sibelius Symphony no.3 (Danielle taught two groups of violin and piano students to the basics of conducting, and they all conducted along with 3-minute recorded section of the Sibelius)

Umoja Ensemble and Umoja Music School students: Kumecucha from Ndoto (a preview of our upcoming show on June 16!)

                                intermission

Violin level 2: Cincinnati

Violin level 3: Allegro Maestoso from Handel's Water Music Suite
                    Si Bheag Si Mohr
                    I've Got My Eye On You from Pirates of the Caribbean

Piano level 3: Opera project (This was truly creative! Danielle had been teaching this group about opera, so they made up their own opera by setting words to the pieces they were playing on piano)

Guitar level 2 and 3 and friends (drums, bass, vocals) Don't Stop Believing

Guitar level 2 and 3 and friends (drums, bass, vocals, violins): You Can Call Me Al

Umoja Ensemble and Umoja Music School students: Watoto Wa Umoja (original composition by Danielle!)

Hopefully I will have pictures to post soon. Meanwhile here is a link to the video of Watoto Wa Umoja: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njLRULVcWxE&feature=relmfu

Congratulations to my colleagues David, Danielle and Tiana, and a huge thank-you to our administrator Annette for all her organizational work! And to all our students -- hongera sana (well done)!


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