Happy Halloween!

A spooky rehearsal today, gave way to these 2 performance of the song, "The Headless Horseman," originally sung by Bing Crosby back in 1948! (Thanks Suz!) I knew the song from an old record I used to play as a kid. The chorus seemed to enjoy the tune quite a bit today as they learned then performed it... HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Take 1


Take 2

PS22 on FOX 5 in NY!

The PS22 Chorus was shown on Fox 5 News at 5 yesterday in their coverage of the Cross Cultural Youth Festival, and the video has now hit the internet, courtesy of Fox's website! (For our footage, visit this morning's post.)

Also, just got word that SILive.com posted a write-up on yesterday's event with a great picture of the chorus! I was told that it is expected to be featured in either tomorrow's or next Thursday's edition of the Staten Island Advance. So be on the look out. But for now, you can check out the article (with a great pic too!) here.

PS22 Chorus Crosses Borders!

Yesterday the PS22 Chorus of 2010 performed at the Cross Cultural Youth Festival we blogged about a few days ago. The event was absolutely amazing, as expected! The kids performed "Can You Hear Me" with the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland, led by the amazing duo of D'ahvionne and Kaitlynn! Then the kids performed an acoustic guitar version of "Run This Town" by Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Kanye West as an encore, led by Karinna and Alyssa! Here is some AMAZING video footage from the event.... (courtesy of Ms. Lisa, probably 2 of the nicest looking chorus videos ever-filmed!)

And the pics.... (courtesy of my dad, Mrs. Johnson, and Ms. Lisa.)

Ashton's Running PS22 All Over Town!

Thanks to our pal, Ashton Kutcher who yesterday gave the kids another shout out on his Twitter page, this time linking to "Run This Town!" For more of Ashton's PS22 tweets, start here!

Cross Cultural Youth Festival

On Tuesday, the PS22 Chorus of 2010 will be performing with the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland in a N.Y.C. D.O.E. sponsored event at the Armory Track & Field in Washington Heights. The chorus is going to perform the beautiful "Can You Hear Me " by Jim Papoulis with the CBOI, and do one of our own songs for an encore! You can find out more about the orchestra in the video below.

PS22 will be one of several groups performing with the extremely talented youth orchestra. You can see the fantastic line up of talent below, which includes the phenomenal ballrooming dancing project featured in the highly successful documentary, Mad Hot Ballroom! Also the Keltic Dreams Irish Dancers from PS59 in the Bronx who've made news recently for their amazing project will be showing their stuff! Check 'em out!

The performance will be webcast live and you can listen here starting at 10:00 AM going to 12:00 PM. The orchestra will also be performing at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center on October 29th. We wish them the best of luck, and of course are looking forward to making music with them at the Armory! Some more info for the CCYF below:

Armory Track & Field Center, Washington Heights, NY
Tuesday October 27th, 2009 @ 10am

“CCYF” – Cross-Cultural Youth Festival

The Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland (CBOI) will headline a New York City Cross-Cultural Youth Festival (CCYF) on October 27th from 10am to 12noon. The CBOI will perform with seven other school groups from around the city, to an audience of more than 2,500 New York City school children. This event is a community outreach effort, a CBOI “giveback”.

The purpose of this event is to promote peace, tolerance and unity among today's youth, all the while increasing awareness and stressing the importance of Arts and Culture programs within the public school system and encouraging youth participation.

The participating groups will represent the many genres of the world of Music and the Performing Arts, to include, but not limited to:

v Dance Theatre of Harlem
v Dancing Classrooms
v Harbor Conservatory for the Performing Arts
v Harlem School of the Arts
v Keltic Dreams
v P.S. 22 Staten Island
v The Wendy Hilliard Foundation

The festival provides local, performing arts groups the opportunity to perform with a full symphony orchestra of their peers. It encourages and affords students considering the performing arts access to talented dance, choral and instrumental performances. Performers and the audience alike will experience traditional Irish music and dance, hip-hop dancers, a Latin dance troupe, rhythmic gymnasts and numerous choral performances.

We're Going To Be Friends!

From last week's rehearsal, here is the great song "We're Going To Be Friends" by The White Stripes. It was also recorded by Jack Johnson for the Curious George soundtrack, and a long-time request from the principal! Mr. Eberle picks up the bass guitar on this one, and makes the song sound even better!

Come Sail Away on the River Styx!

The kids had another great rehearsal today, as evidenced by the video below! The song is the classic "Come Sail Away," by the awesome eighties band, Styx! The kids breathe new life into it, and show how much fun it is to be in the PS22 Chorus of 2010! (Though it seems that Mr. B may be in dire need of some piano lessons....)

UPDATE: The new video has already earned itself some YouTube honors, including the #42 Top Rated Music Video!

UPDATE 2: Perez Hilton just tweeted about our "beautiful new video" on his Twitter page! Thanks to Mr. P for his continued support!

UPDATE 3 (10/25/09): "Come Sail Away" also grabbed the attention of another PS22 Chorus buddy, Ashton Kutcher, this morning! (For more of Ashton's PS22 tweets start here.)

A New Electric Company Vid!

Above is a newly posted PBS Electric Company video featuring the PS22 Chorus of 2008!! For more Electric Company/PS22 Chorus footage & pics, click here!

12 Million!

Congratulations to the PS22 Chorus kids on reaching over 12,000,000 views on their internet videos!! Just wow.

An Ashton Re-tweet!

After posting the a capella version just days before, Ashton Kutcher re-tweeted about our new piano version of "Halo" video again last night, calling it "simply inspired!" Thanks go out again to one of the chorus's biggest supporters! For more of the many PS22 Chorus tweets from Ashton, start here!

Halo 2

Here the PS22 Chorus of 2010 sings "Halo" by Beyonce with piano. (Check out the previously posted a capella version here) Brielle is astounding on this, and the chorus is really blending beautifully. You can hear the harmonies coming in much tighter(especially on the a capella part) now that we're a month in. The kids took it up a notch the day "Run This Town" was filmed.

At the end, there's a little montage of my screw-ups. (I was attempting to adjust to the new key after deciding to take it up a half step.) I'm sure we could get a better version, but this one makes me smile every time I watch. And the second half of the song is perfection.

And just in case you somehow missed the video of the kids singing this for Beyonce AND Lady Gaga, here ya go:

UPDATE: The video has earned itself some YouTube honors, including the #40 Top Rated Music video! Check 'em out below!

Back Door Santa Is Back!!

Yesterday the chorus got a visit from legendary PS22 Chorus of 2004 soloist, Clive! Clive is best remembered at PS22 as "Back Door Santa," and also as one of the coolest of kids with the oldest of souls. The chorus of 2010 got treated to an impromptu performance of his signature song upon his arrival. Check it out below, as well as Clive's original rendition from PS22's Fourth Annual Holiday Choral Concert of 2003 of this Clarence Carter classic!

"Back Door Santa" (Holiday Show 2003)