TMHS Modern Music Ensemble Community Performance Westview

Rehabilitation Center 2/2/16 This past Tuesday, the Modern Music Ensemble were invited to perform

for our local surrounding community at the Westview Rehabilitation Center and its residents.

With a full set list and instruments in hand, TMHS MME students were ecstatically awaiting their performance for the Westview Rehabilitation Center residents. After last

year’s successful show, the director of entertainment for Westview had invited the MME back for another show! The residents and staff alike danced, clapped, and smiled

throughout the MME’s performance. The group even performed a personal encore for a bed bound resident. His ear to ear smile spoke when words could not. Music is a gift to be

shared by all. Thank you MME students for your dedication to giving back to your local community and its neediest members.

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TNT New York A Huge Success! This year’s TNT production was a huge success not only for Mrs. Anderson and her music department, but for the whole surrounding community. If you missed the show, be sure to check our the replays on our local cable Charter Channel or online at their website.

TMHS Music TNT Hosts Live on WINY This year, Mrs. Anderson and the TNT New York Hosts appeared live on our local radio station WINY to promote the wonderful TNT Show and happenings at our TMHS!

CMEA All Eastern Auditions 14 TMHS Music students auditioned for the CMEA All Eastern region Music Festival. 6 TMHS Music Students made the cut this year! Congratulations to them all!!

FEBRUARY 2016

TMHS Music Department Monthly Newsletter & Musical Happenings

TMHS Music Department collected canned goods for TEAG at our Winter Concert. It was a huge success & TEEG was

extremely grateful! Thank you to all who support our efforts!

“What an amazing group of musical talent” Mr. Lawrence Prentice says about our TMHS Concert Choir.

TMHS Concert Choir We had a great time caroling through out the Thompson School District!!

What a treat it was for both students and school community members to have the TMHS Concert Choir continue their tradition of caroling throughout the Thompson School District at the end of December. Almost 45 members strong, this is our largest Concert Choir ensemble under the direction of Mrs. Kate Anderson!

With our numbers growing every year, this wonderful tradition showcases the vocal talents of the TMHS students as well as encouraging the students to share their musical talents with the rest of their school community. This helps demonstrate to our younger students, as well as all school employees and staff that TMHS Music has a lot to offer to the students in the Thompson District!

Next year we hope to expand our caroling to local businesses, TEEG, and town offices if weather permits. Remember, To spread Holiday Cheer, Sing Loud for All to HEAR!!

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FEBRUARY 2016

TMHS MUSIC’S VERY OWN SINGING QUARTET We are so very proud of the four students who make up our TMHS National Anthem Singing Quartet. Elizabeth Jourdan, Emily Dunn, Abigail Poirier, & Elizabeth Silvia have been singing as a quartet for the past two and 1/2 years.

These very dedicated students sing the National Anthem for various community events like Turkey Trot, Veteran’s Day Ceremonies, TMHS

Basketball & Football Events, etc. This year, this wonderful group was asked to perform for our Connecticut Veterans for our state’s honor ceremony that took place at Elis Tech this past December. Mae Flexor, one of our regions state’s senator, had heard our quartet sing at the Turkey Trot and invited our group to share their musical talents for this very touching ceremony. We are

so proud of their talents and dedication to giving back to our surrounding community.

TMHS Music Department was thrilled to have so many of our Music Department Alumni come back to help mentor our current TMHS Music Students.

This program began when Mrs. Anderson encouraged her first year’s graduates to come back to help out our incoming students learn their instruments, sight read new music, how to help the department continue to grow, and how to give back to their community. With five years of Alumni, we have students who are studying music education, students who are sound and lighting technicians at the college level sharing their insight, as well as many other students sharing their college experiences with our current students.

These mentor sessions help not just our current music students, but the alumni as well. These teachable moments are encouraging life long friendships, networking opportunities, as well as opportunities for the alumni to come back and share all their life experiences with our current students.

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TMHS Music Department Happenings

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Congratulations to all of the students who have audition for the multiple CMEA Music Festivals:

This is our largest number of students to audition for these wonderful “real world” music auditions. Throughout these various auditions and festivals, students learn first hand how to audition, learn solo musical pieces as well as large ensemble music and experiences, drills

and scales, and sight reading skills~ All needed musicianship skills for furthering their music educational experiences and for future musical opportunities.

Hailey Lafrenais, Sarrah Bernier, Tyler LaCasse, Sarah Langlois, Matthew Grauer, Abigail Poirier, Joseph Jullian, Emma Fahey

Emily Dunn, Elizabeth Jourdan, Emily Vincent, Kyle Gatzke, Elizabeth Silvia, Skyla Wesolowski

(Selected for All Eastern Music Festival held at UCONN 1/8/16 & 1/9/16)

Fun Facts: The piano Freddie Mercury plays in Bohemian Rhapsody is the same exact piano Paul McCartney plays in Hey Jude.

Babies remain calm twice as long when listening to a song as they do when listening to speech, according to a study.

Q: How many conductors does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: No one knows, no one ever looks at him.

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UPCOMING EVENTS: 2/9/16- Thompson Friends of Music meeting 6:30 pm TMHS LMC (Snow date TBD)

2/11/16- TMHS Music Officers Meeting 7am

2/12/16- Tri M New Members Announced

2/22/16- All Breakfast Tickets Sold Money Due to TMHS Music!!

2/28/16- TMHS Music Breakfast Fundraiser Thompson American Legion

2/29/16- All Broadway Payments Due in Full

3/8/16- TMHS Pops Concert 6:30pm Thompson District Auditorium

Concert Choir President’s Take This semester in chorus, we have learned a lot and already accomplished so much. We started off the year with basic overviews of reading music and understanding musical terms and how to use them to help enhance our performances. The students were able to show off their talents in the winter formal concert back in December and we have already learned most of our music for the pops concert coming up March 8th. The freshmen have been getting to know the older students and making friendships while also building their confidence and skill during classes, and the difference from the beginning of the year to now is unbelievable. We already have students from all grades with solos for the Pops concert. I have a feeling that this next concert will be a great one!

Concert Band President’s Notes Since our Winter concert on December 2nd

there has been a lot happening. The CMEA All-Eastern auditions were on January 9th. This year the department was lucky enough to be able to send 6 members of our department to audition. We are proud of all our participating students! The students selected to apply for induction to Tri-M were announced during the Winter concert. The due date for applications was January 6th. Since then, the applications have been reviewed. The inductees will be announced on February 12th.

This past week were midterm exams. To prepare for the exam, the concert band students have used Smartmusic to work on scales and chorales. They also have been using this resource to practice the pieces for the upcoming Pops concert on March 8th.

Upcoming events for the music department include the Pops concert, a Modern Music Ensemble gig at Westview on February 2nd, our department trip to Broadway on April 7th, and prepping for our Great East Music Festival on May 20th. There will also be multiple fundraisers including a breakfast at the American Legion.

Musical Sharings:

Music has given me a way to express who I am and who I want to be. It is a way to communicate truth without all of the noise of the irrelevant environment around me. As a music teacher I experience real joy in helping young children discover a way to let their personalities “sing” through their guitar, their piano or their voice, or any instrument they might choose. A musical instrument is just that, a tool to be used to aid in a specific undertaking.

My purpose in teaching is to share the opportunity of using another language, that of music, to showcase the beautiful aspects of their present and future identity.

Tamera Van Erdewyk Do-Re-Mi and You Music Studio Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Music For Thought:

Experts are trying to understand how our brains can hear and play music. A stereo system puts out vibrations that travel through the air and somehow get inside the ear canal. These vibrations tickle the eardrum and are transmitted into an electrical signal that travels through the auditory nerve to the brain stem, where it is reassembled into something we perceive as music.

Johns Hopkins researchers have had dozens of jazz performers and rappers improvise music while lying down inside an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) machine to watch and see which areas of their brains light up. “Music is structural, mathematical and architectural. It’s based on relationships between one note and the next. You may not be aware of it, but your brain has to do a lot of computing to make sense of it,” notes one otolaryngologist. http://m.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/healthy_aging/healthy_mind/keep-your-brain-young-with-music

“Each note rubs the others just right, and the instrument shivers with delight. The feeling is unmistakable, intoxicating,”musician Glenn Kurtz

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