A musical romp into history
Sunday,
March 7, 2004
For a serious subject like
history, it sure was lots of fun: hand-clapping musical numbers announcing
fascinating and famous New Jerseyans.
For an hour Friday morning, the
students of a Bloomingdale school sat enthralled on the floor of the auditorium
of the Samuel R. Donald School listening to a multipronged program presented by
Solid Brass, a brass group that performs at schools throughout the state and at
retirement centers.
The ensemble took the children
- kindergartners through fourth-graders -on a voyage through New Jersey
history, from one of the original 13 colonies inhabited by Leni-Lenape Indians
through the Revolutionary War with George Washington crossing the icy Delaware
River, to such modern heroes as astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Walter Schirra, to
the country's first organized baseball game in Hoboken.
Interspersed with the narration
were photos of Garden State luminaries such as Thomas Edison, Grover Cleveland,
Abbot and Costello, and Albert Einstein.
Members of the group
demonstrated how to play the trumpet, French horn, trombone, tuba, and drums,
interspersing lessons with rousing marches, movie themes, and patriotic tunes
with characters in state history: "Yankee Doodle Dandy" for early
patriots, "Yellow Submarine" for submarine inventor John Holland, and
"Take Me Out to the Ball Game" for former Yankees catcher Yogi
Berra).
Students were smiling when an
ensemble member called about 20 of them to the front to participate in a song
with fun noisemakers, including maracas, a small Brazilian drum called a
cabasa, a cowbell, a flexitone, a tambourine, sleigh bells, and whistles.
In the background, mimicking
and imitating the other performers and their instruments was Douglas Haislip,
director of Solid Brass. The ensemble is part of a larger group whose members
have performed at Lincoln Center with the Metropolitan Opera, and with the New
York City Ballet, the New York City Opera, and Broadway shows. Haislip was
responsible for most of the giggles.
"The guy was funny,"
a fourth-grader said after the performance.
On a more serious and uplifting
note, an ensemble member closed with this: "In the future, perhaps some of
you will change history, and we'll be talking about you."
The program, sponsored by the
Bloomingdale PTA and Board of Education, was praised by board member Dennis
DiLorenzo.
"This is the best
[program] so far, the one I enjoyed most," he said. "It's funny and
interesting, and I think it was the most effective."
He also praised Jamie Strait,
chairman of PTA programming, who was instrumental in arranging for the program
to perform at the district.
"The kids are having so
much fun, they don't realize how much they're learning," Strait said.
Principal Whitney Perro said
she and Principal Mary Ann Mahometa of the Martha B. Day School selected the
program because it touched on what all grade levels are studying about state
history.
"It culminates an intense
study the fourth grade is doing of New Jersey," she said. "And it's
an opportunity for the children to see how the instruments sound together."
To Stephanie Duncan, a
fourth-grade teacher, the program dovetailed with the curriculum perfectly.
"It was great, a review of
everything we're doing in class," she said. "They had a great time.
It was a nice blend of education, fun, information, and music."