POP Freire Newsletter 3.13.2020
Dear POP Freire Families,
First of all, thank you for your flexibility in this uncertain time. Also, your students are to be commended for an excellent video performance they gave yesterday during program. After I announced that the concert was cancelled, there were many angry faces staring back at me. Admittedly, I was glad to see that they had taken such ownership of their identity as musicians that they WERE so upset! However, they brought their A-game in a serious way and managed to pull off a really great video performance. Links and MP3s will be coming out soon!
Secondly, welcome to our new format for newsletters! From now on, you will get all of your information from me here. Please take the time to check out the newly-live parent portal on the website. There are some great resources here – including a place to pay fees with a credit card (can I get an amen?). We will be using this site for all our future newsletters and communication about upcoming events. But don’t worry – I’ll still send you a link every week!
Recording Session a Success – Just Barely!
My plan for this week rapidly deteriorated from concert to recording session to no program. However, thanks to Mr. Devin – we have one photo, and thanks to Mr. Mike, who ran from the POP office to FCMS with video recording equipment at the last second, we have a video forthcoming! Check out this photo from our recording session on Thursday. I know I keep saying this, but your students were incredible this session. They took immense pride in their performance and showed a whole lot of musical maturity. We are working on getting the raw video/audio from our recording session ready for you, and I will send it out as soon as I can.
No Program Scheduled until April 6 – But you can still be musical!
By now you have received the email from Ms. Jess, our program director about suspending all programming until April. 6. While we are going to miss this instructional time with your students, we don’t want to leave you with no tools for encouraging them musically. Here are three things you can do in the coming week to encourage their musical-mindedness.
- Encourage your students to practice as they feel they can during the break. They may get bored of other things, and this might break things up for them.
- Have them watch an online concert. Here’s a link to a really good one by the Philadelphia Orchestra to an EMPTY hall on March 12. The performance is stunning.
- Have your student write an original composition for his/her instrument. Our last session was all about composers who wrote music for our kids specifically. See if your student is interested in writing a piece. We can provide a platform for them to perform the pieces when we come back! Here’s a link to some free music notation software.
Moving forward, if you have any questions, I’m certainly available to you. Feel free to email or call me. I hope you have a wonderful spring break!
~Anna.
