POP Freire Family Newsletter
Don’t Worry, Be Happy!
Celebrating Philadelphians in Music
While we are all separated and in our own spaces, I thought it would be fun to learn about some musicians who came from our great city of Philadelphia.
This week we are learning about Philadelphian Bobby McFerrin. Bobby is famous for his song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” This song came out in 1988 and was instantly a success. It was the first acapella (voice only) song to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, and one of the first to have all the tracks recorded by one person – Bobby! Kind of like today how everyone is recording videos of people in their homes and then putting them together. Bobby was doing this 30 years ago!
Check out Bobby’s website here where you can be the engineer who mixes all the parts together. Choose which tracks will play at which time and come up with your own arrangement of the song.
You can also watch the music video here. Robin Williams is in the video too! (They were good friends.) Bobby’s message is still important for us today – stay strong, Dragons!
Bobby visits POP
Last year, POP had Bobby McFerrin and Stewart Copeland (drummer for the Police) visited us at St. Francis de Sales to talk about what music means to us in our lives. I believe this topic is more relevant to us now than ever before. Art is going to help us get through this time. We need it more now than ever.
Let us know how you are using music to get you through this time of isolation.
Teaching Artist Videos
Don’t forget about our TA instructional videos available to all of our students on our family portal. Do you have a request for a video? Just let me know, and I’ll have a TA make one for you.
POP TAs Doing Great Things
Mr. Devin just completed his curriculum for three levels of clarinet players all in one book – way to go, Mr. Devin! Check out some of his practice videos for a sneak peek into what that curriculum looks like.
Ms. Anna was featured in an article in the Temple News for her live daily concerts during the quarantine. Read the article here.
St. Francis TA, Mr. Nic was featured in an article in the Inquirer. Check it out here!
Upcoming programming
We have spent the last several weeks considering how best to program for our students and to meet their needs while we are all at home. Look for updates coming to your email very soon for what this will look like. In the mean time, explore the TA videos.
