hi this is gaillard us and welcome to another edition of gale force today show is focused on all the great musical happenings around belmont i'm very lucky to have a big panel today and let's go around and everyone can and i am a misquote you know parent two boys ok the first thing that i want to talk about is something that i'm actually involved in and with which is called the mamas and the papas and the teachers too which is a parent teacher chorus and this is the first year correct and christine is our conductor can you tell us how you came up with the idea or who who did come up with the idea well it was really john  play percussion i wasn't so good at the far right and there were a lot of people in that and there were also some people who said you know i don't play an instrument but i would love to be a part of a chorus this  experiment was a chorus something of a band and when you you announced that one of the concerts did you think that maybe people weren't going to be want to do it because you have a lot of people yeah i had no idea what the interest would be like i knew of parents who who sing professionally and i also knew of teachers who said you know they might be interested in something like it but it was interesting to see if anyone would actually sign up parent you're a mama so tell me how you decided to get involved with this and now the experience been so far while i was reading the poems newsletter and on the last page was this invitation and i looked at him i thought oh i definitely want to do this but i can't thing so i wasn't sure if i should but it said it was an experiment and all will welcome so it looked like so i signed up and then on the same day i called john mcclellan and just to lynn came so it was good i'm having a great time yeah i am too and it is very nice we say will you save me a seat just takes you kind of back to those days when i was two daughters one in twelve screen and one in fifth went to that concert i wasn't there and i guess when it was announced they both looked at each other like that but it could not be kept hidden from me and i absolutely love it  doing three songs and how did you come up with that if you tell the title because one of them i always mess up short yeah we're doing imagine originally by john lennon sat down the servant which is a spiritual and zulu d day which is a french song and it was really hard to pick the pieces actually because i had no idea who was going to be part of the chorus at the time i had to pick i needed to give the music to the  and that was before winter break and it didn't start till right after into a break so i didn't know how many people would be in the chorus and what if we would have you know way more females than males and etc et so i tried to pick a song that everyone knew so that you know even the people who never sang in a chorus before could feel some sort of connection and that was imagine and then i tried to pick just two very different songs so we could explore different types of music and we have the spiritual or we can sing really loud and accented and then we have this french song which is a quick dancing and very funny piece  i think is i think some people the group are well it's such a varied group that some people have a lot of experience with that and i think it must be challenging for you to work with people do you think cell of who are who have never s hard it is challenging because at the adult age you get such a difference between you know there's people who are music theater and music majors and college and saying all the time and then there's people who proclaim that they only sing in the shower so it's a big difference but i have to say you know the elementary school level fourth and fifth graders and i'm sure you guys find this a mere bands and choruses that there's always that difference that there's some people who have a lot more experience privately and some people who don't so it is a challenge but it's a fun one to trying you know get over it so yeah yeah it is it is fun and i find when i'm there some of the questions that people ask are so i am so impressed that they even i don't know what they're saying when they ask you about certain nodes or time right but you're right in very good about explaining it and then dust it off for the the event and that could be two decades later and i think that's the beauty of the whole thing is that i was mentioning before when you you just said that your kids are loving the fact that you're up there on stage and i think the fact that our children are seeing the parents taking out their instrument again practicing or just singing for the first time yeah that's the beauty of this whole event the kids are seeing adults still enjoying making the way we've been watching it allows them to see their own future it's this not going to go away for me after high school and that's right and i think it's important to they see as taking time for us yes and i want to say it's i think it's a beautiful gift that given to us  present that you allow i want to have yank you that's a very good point and yeah thank you if you're giving of your time and people it's so i do yeah i know it's really really fun though and i think that hopefully people w come and watch this and you know i don't know if you're going to try to back to instrumental next year maybe both but i won't berridge be able to come out you're saying this we are going to start the band oh again after the february break oh really it will be going on in the whole point is to is to have fun with something that you either haven't done for a long time or you don't do much of in the mamas and the papas band last year i picked up the french horn something that i've probably pl for maybe a grand total of a summer in my life and it was just a lot of fun you know in we're working with the parents of our students and working with fellow teachers and it's just not a great experience and something that's new for some people and for some of us who are veterans certainly suppose that could be trans marimba or a set of bells or sort of chimes the mallet instruments had you never played a trumpet before and we gave you a hard rap probably maybe difficult with yeah yeah i'm thinking  teachers seventeen percent were teachers and i think it's something that's going to really start to roll back when see he morgan was the conductor of the belmont choirs we had a great faculty choir  and i've heard a lot of teachers you know asking me or sean landers who's at their high school now is this going to happen again this is going to happen again so i think it's something that's eventually really going to pick up steam whether it be with the band or the course it's once we get the word out everyone starts to see how much fun it actually is yeah i think we'll see a lot more teachers involved that it takes a lot of kicking and screaming from them continue in the similar fashion well that's one of the reasons i wanted to have you on my show is because i think that one of the things i absolutely love about living in belmont is that the music and arts program i think i mean now i say to my friends they never could cut those involvement and i mean they might have a user fee but i think the parents and that everyone in belmont is very respectful of how important music is which you would you agree with that well yeah i would because they just pull all the classroom teachers and i think there is not a single classroom teacher that does not understand the value of training and you know there is nothing that everything we do supports academics as well as the holistic education of the child taught at the same time it in a creative way whether science social studies cultures foreign language math it all happens there it in a different way in for some kids that different way might get them to understand what's going on in their academic classes more efficient on the right way and that is a good point and i think it's also a place for music anywhere it's kids who might never form a friendship maybe think that in or out of school i think music has that ability to just unite community or group or a bigger group and there are definitely social advantages yeah i mean even you know in our nancy freeman and old friend sarah help who retired from the belmont school three four years ago they're producing in lending a hand in everything like that so it's going to be a lot of fun lots of singing and lots of dancing in it that you guys were doing that i was so excited it's going to be a lot of fun we start rehearsing wednesday february third full cast read through so you know we're all really looking forward to it it's going to be a lot of fun and it sounds like a lot of work that's a asked it is it's not only a lot of kids but you know costuming them in getting them all to dance in sync in seeing their parts and then all the all the backstage aspects of it we have great parents that are going to help us so the parts organization which is the parents of theater students they're lending a big hand which is great and then we have some great student stage managers and house managers working backstage to from the middle school or the middle symphony graders and it's a great learning experience from that it's a whole different side of theater that a lot of kids in the middle school don't get to see a lot of my backstage kids and my stage manage things in things like that i want them to be middle school children middle school students so they can see that there's more to theater than just being in the spotlight right now and a lot of kids really are looking forward to doing the tech program so that's going to be a lot of rain yeah that is going to be a lot of fun so february eleventh concert that you're involved in is and then is there also a an elementary concert there is the set of the program will put on a production on march student taught outside of albany about eight years ago middle school in high school which was which is what a fun it was a fun experience and it really prepared me to come out here and teach registration where you guys went to register yes this course taken the chorus away and now it's the band you can register for green i'm psyched they'll be on wednesday nights after that for her break right up to the april  where we put on the third chamber cause great well thank you i know thank you very much i'm excited to do that so we're going to wrap it up and i just want to force and if you would like to be a guest on my show please contact me i would love it w nobody to tell you belmont media dot org