November: Franz Joseph Haydn

Our November Composer of the Month is:

Joseph Haydn

Haydn was born into a poor family. He began as a choirboy in Vienna at age 8 and survived poverty by teaching music lessons. Haydn's luck changed when a wealthy family hired him as a music director. For over 30 years, he filled their palace with music composing and conducting weekly concerts. He wrote over 60 string quartets and completed over 100 symphonies earning him the well deserved title of "Father of the Symphony!"

He is recognized by his music's cheerful, humorous, kind, and devout style.

Some of his more familiar compositions are: The Creation, "Surprise" and "Paris" Symphonies, and The Seven Last Words of Christ. 


Symphony No. 94, "Surprise" Symphony. 

The Creation. No. 4 - Und Gott machte das Firmament

Music K-8 Art Contest!

Plank Road Publishing has announced their 23rd annual contest:

Draw a Cover for Music K-8 Magazine!

Top prize is $250

The winning entry will be printed on the cover of the May/June 2015 issue of Music K-8!

See Mrs. Caughlan for entry sheets! All entries are due by January 16, 2015. 

October: Johannes Brahms

Our October Composer of the Month is:

Johannes Brahms

You might recognize his very famous Brahms Lullaby or Hungarian Dances.

Brahms is one of the may famous German composers. He learned to play cello, horn, and piano as a young boy and conducted his first concert at only 14.

Brahm's premier of his first piano concerto was a complete disaster. Thee audience hissed and booed him. Years later, Brahms gained success and great fame writing the famous pieces still listened to today.

To listen to some of Brahm's music, click on the videos below


Brahms Lullaby:

Hungarian Dances No. 5:

Hello there!

"Hello there, how are you? It's so good to see you! We'll sing and be happy that we're all here together again."

Welcome to the blog! GSA students K-2 sing this song as our welcome song every day. Our 1st and 2nd grade students have really improved with our class warm-up. I'm very excited about the musical talent we have this year! The students have really grown!

This year has been full of activity! I've been meaning to post to the blog since the first day of school, but we've been so busy! Our K-2 students spent all of September preparing for two performances, learning over 5 songs in just a few short weeks. Our 1st performance was for the GSA Grand Event, and our second was for a local festival known as Linfest. Oh, did I mention the performances were all in a period of about two days!?!?!?

The kids put on a wonderful performance for our Grant Event. I could not be more impressed and proud of them. Their performance was exceptional and I'm glad they were able to showcase their amazing talents for our grandparents and friends.

Our second performance for Linfest was a terrific way to give back to our local community. Over 130 students from our school volunteered their time on a Saturday to come out and sing for the festival. I was completely blown away by the support of the parents and staff who came out for the performance, and that so many students chose to attend. I could have never imagined so many students would come for the performance! If you're not familiar with GSA, this is a great testament to the kind, supportive, and gracious families and students we have here.

Now that the busy time is over, I hope to make more regular posts to the blog. I'm going to back myself into a corner here and say there will be a big new entry coming to the "student" section of the website. OK, now that I've said that I have to make it happen right????

Happy 2nd Quarter everyone!

Teacher Appreciation Week

This week is teacher appreciation week. What a wonderful week it has been! 

Students made appreciation notes in computer class for all the staff at GSA! It was great to get notes from all my students and especially from 4th grade students who I had in music last year! 

 When I came into school today, I had even more lovely notes taped to my door! I truly appreciate the cards and notes from everyone. I feel so loved this week! 

I believe 100% percent that the students at GSA are the sweetest ones around! I have saved every note, drawing, picture, and card I have received from students all year, and keep them in our "Sugar Notes" binder. As you can see, it's getting rather full!









My favorite gifts of all, however, have to be my egg shakers. Students periodically bring me an "Easter egg" they have filled with change, rice, sugar, beads, marbles, etc to add to our egg shaker collection! They like playing with these home made egg shakers better than playing with our real ones!

Thank you so much to all my students and their families for their wonderful gifts during this wonderful week!

Because We're Mapping!

Two weeks ago, Mrs. Feeney and I had the idea to make a school video to get GSA pumped for the MAP test. If you haven't already seen it, check it out here!

I must say that I am very proud of this project. It was truly a team effort. Mrs. Bryant wrote parody lyrics for Pharrell Williams' hit "Happy", and taught her version to her students. Mrs. Bryant kindly gave Mrs. Feeney the lyrics and the idea to use this song for our MAP video! Thank you Mrs. Bryant!  Mrs. Feeney and I then recorded teachers and staff members dancing, lip syncing, and showing off the week of the MAP test. Mrs. Feeney edited the video while I recorded my voice for the video's audio. Feeney did a great job!  She is very talented and was able to do her voice audio recording in only one take! (I might have needed about 12 for my vocal part...)

I feel very lucky here at GSA in having two music teachers and in having a fun and crazy staff! This was truly a collaborative effort. I feel very fortunate to have such a talented and awesome team here at GSA! Thank you to everyone who participated in our video, enjoy, and ROCK THE MAP!!!

Summer Camps Continued!

Wow! I can't believe May is already here and summer is right around the corner!  Mrs. Feeney has posted a few more summer camps to her class webpage. If you are still looking for summer opportunities, please visit her page if you are interested in a Strings Summer Camp.

Mrs. C