A Standing Ovation at LINCOLN CENTER!

The chorus of 2008 got together to give an encore performance and outdid themselves as they performed last week at the legendary Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center. On August 25th, there was a New Teacher Ceremony welcoming the new incoming public school educators joining the system for the upcoming school year. In attendance was NYC Public Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, who e-mailed Mrs. Donath, our principal, writing, "I was very impressed. Your students were terrific and your music teacher is a force of nature. Very exciting." It's very exciting to receive such high praise from Chancellor Klein and we thank him, especially Hurricane B. :)

Watch the 2 videos below to see why the chorus earned its standing ovation they received at the conclusion of the performance.

"Valor" by Andrew Canlon (former student)


"Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House

The PS22 Chorus Lincoln Center performance was also featured prominently in the latest edition of the City Schools Newsletter, put out by the NYC Department of Education. Click on the article below to enlarge.

Below are some more pics from The Chorus of 2008's last hurrah! Thanks for the memories kids! :)

Traveling in style!Rehearsing.... More rehearsing...
Isaac and Angela one last "Time"
A Standing O!

The Power's Back On!

That's right -- the Electric Company has called yet again to make good use of the patented PS22 Chorus electricity! As reported earlier on the blog after our first EC shoot, the classic PBS show from the 1970's is back into production, and the kids got another chance last week to shoot some video segments for the all-new Electric Company series that will be airing at some point in January, 2009. Here is a behind the scenes look at the shoot.

The chorus performed at Keansburg Amusement Park for this new shoot, so of course this doubled the fun of the experience! They even got a chance to go on a few rides before the rains came down with a vengeance! But I think we all agreed that the rides were only the icing on the cake. Working with the extremely talented actors and crew from Electric Company was definitely the highlight of the experience. The chorus even got to meet and work with some other extremely talented kids as well that day, and everyone left the experience feeling like a family. Below are some great pics that captured the fun of our two day shoot!

The meeting of the stars!
Actress/singer Selene with the 22 Crew!
The Matthew Of Liberty
Does hard work get any more fun than this?
Zaria thinks..... "maybe."Mrs. Donath and her little Evan even have a cameo!
Isaac & Justin are all smiles! Zarmeen is all aglow!
Everybody enjoying each other's company! (And yup, that IS Miss LiPuma! She's in the video too!)
ParTAY in Keansburg!!
Matthew gets a starring role!
Courtney taking a well-deserved break, but always time to be cool!!
Zarmeen wonders... can Andrew make the shot? Leslie shows that giraffe who's boss!
Electric Company's Amy shows MRS. JOHNSON who's boss!
Girl Power!!
Boy power!!
Isaac goes round and round as the painted ponies....
...as does Samantha....
Rebecca taking it all in!
Isaiah showing his skills!
The ladies of the chorus....
Wow! The PS22 Chorus is going to be part of the Electric Company phenomenon!!

Okay, I guess since it's August.....

...I'd better put up the inevitable graduation post. Yeah, I know, I know. So it took me a couple of months to acknowledge that the Chorus of 2008 is indeed moving on. I think that should be easy enough to understand!

It's hard saying goodbye to some of the greatest kids ever, so I'm glad I did it already!! NO WAY am I putting myself through that again!! I'll just leave you with some nice pics!

Jarred provides a memorable graduation moment!

Courtney gets a hug from Mrs. Donath as he receives an award at graduation

Ashley goes to receive her well-deserved music award

So is Michael upside down or his certificate? Hmmmmm......

Mrs. Burns and Mr. B with the amazing Ashleigh

The PS22 Chorus Rises Again......

Here is the final video recording of the PS22 Chorus of 2008, called appropriately enough, "Phoenix." It's a song I co-wrote in college with some guy named Nat (forgot your last name, sorry dude!) The kids did a great job in making the song sound better than it ever did before. And again, even though this was our last official recording of the year, there will be more videos and mp3s of this year's chorus surfacing soon.

My Country Tis TV.....

Be on the lookout in August for the chorus's amazing Flag Day performance, which will be airing on Staten Island's CTV throughout the month. Unfortunately the schedule I was provided does NOT include the specific channel, but it should be on either channels 34, 35, or 57.

Here are the air-dates and times:

Sunday, August 3rd 2:00-3:30 PM
Tuesday, August 5th 3:00-4:30 PM
Thursday, August 7th 4:00-5:30 PM
Sunday, August 10th 4:30-6:00 PM
Monday, August 11th 3:30-5:00 PM
Monday, August 18th 5:30-7:00 & 10:00-11:30 PM
Sunday, August 24th 4:30-6:00 PM

Below are videos from the Flag Day Ceremony, this year's and last year's.

PS22 Chorus 2008 AMERICA


PS22 Chorus 2007 FATHER'S SON by TORI AMOS

A 'Glimpse Of Heaven' (To 'Coin' a Phrase)

Here are a few new amazing videos of former chorus member of 2006-7 JUSTIN! These are improvs, songs he made up as they were being recorded! If you scroll down, on the sidebar you will see many MP3s available of Justin's incredible improvs. Ashley sent me clips of Justin Beiber and he was great, but I maintain that OUR Justin is supreme!

The first is a song we call "Glimpse Of Heaven". I just finished working on the video and am proud to share it! When I originally recorded Justin on this, it was upsetting that his vocals came out so good, but the piano wasn't recorded properly. So I found a great Future House dance song called "Silence" by Acorn Arts and mixed in Justin's vocals (and a little of my own from the same recording). For the video, I included clips from an old Joan Fontaine movie called, "The Constant Nymph", Justin singing for Academy Award-winner Marcia Gay Harden, AND footage from our 2008 PS22 Chorus 'VENUS' Dance Off! You can see Brandon, Samantha, Courtney, Kareem, Aminah, Davoya, Ashley, Isaiah, Chris, Fergie, etc. doing their thing in high speed to the music! I think it's a great song AND a great video!

The next is one of my all-time favorite Justin improvs called, A Lost Feeling. Hard to believe he made up the words and melody as you hear it here, but that's how it is folks!

This one is called "Hold On Tonight." Check out that high note at the end!

The last song is called "California" and is another one of his best.

MUCH more Justin mp3s and videos can be found on the blog!
Happy hunting! :)

"I Don't Think I've Ever Heard A Better Version of One of My Songs" -- Neil Finn

Presenting a unique interview with Neil Finn, as the children of the PS22 Chorus ask the questions! The interview is accompanied by a sweet photo/video collage. Neil discusses everything from the creation of "Private Universe", to his amazing response to the PS22 Chorus when he first discovered them on the internet. He even gives the kids us a geography lesson in the process! Great fun and a heartfelt tribute to Neil for everything he and Crowded House have done for the chorus. And of course a big thank must go to Miss Lisa for recording this!! ENJOY!

PS22 Chorus/Neil Finn interview PT. 1


PS22 Chorus/Neil Finn interview PT. 2


Below are some mp3's of the interview.

PS22 Chorus interviews Neil Finn Pt 1

PS22 Chorus interviews Neil Finn Pt 2

And stay tuned because the PS22 CHORUS 2008 MP3's are coming very soon, which will also include a few more Crowded House goodies. If missed the actual Crowded House/PS22 performance vids, soundcheck vids, pics and more, click here to experience it all!

Renaissance Children

Here is a very cool video and mp3 of the medieval chants written by my fourth and fifth grade music classes for Mrs. Lois Byrnes Renaissance Fair in 2004. Each of the classes picked a different Latin phrase and one of the musical modes (dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, etc.) to write a melody. We used solfège (Do, Re, Mi) to compose the chants and some of them came out beautiful, others disturbingly beautiful! They were originally intended to be a capella, but I couldn't help adding some music and sound effects to the melodies. And needless to say, the chorus sang them to perfection! This is another one of my all-time favorite chorus recordings, so I'm happy to offer a higher quality mp3 in addition to the video.

And here is the MP3:
PS22 Chorus of 2004 -- Original Medieval Chants

MP3s of the chorus of 2008, coming soon....

Now and BEN!

PS22 Chorus legend Ben returned for a visit the last week of school, and I was fortunate enough to have the trusty video camera along to record him singing a little piece of "Lord I Give You My Heart", by Michael W. Smith. Ben does an AMAZING job, needless to say. His piano skills are extremely impressive, considering he's only taught himself how to play in the last couple of years. Ben's a major talent, and we see a bright future ahead of him.

Ben sings, "Lord I Give You My Heart" by Michael W. Smith

Here are some other classic PS22 BEN performances, including his rendition of Kirk Franklin's "Now Behold The Lamb" which has scored over 56,000 hits over the internet!

Ben with the PS22 Chorus of 2005, "Now Behold The Lamb" by Kirk Franklin


Ben taught me this spiritual, "Step By Step", which we incorporated into PS22's Martian musical, True Colors


Ben sings his a capella version of "Not Guilty" by John P. Kee for our second American Idol competition


And here is an updated version of the same song when Ben came to chill before this year's Holiday Choral Concert


A short but sweet rendition of Go Tell It On The Mountain

It's ELECTRIC!!

"Hey you guuuuuuuuuuuuys!!!" I promised that big news was on the way, and now we're to make the announcement! On June 25th, the PS22 Chorus shot over to The Frederick Douglas Academy in Harlem to star in a video for the classic Emmy Award-winning PBS kids' television show, ELECTRIC COMPANY! It was very cool to have the kids be a part of something that will be seen all over the United States and beyond -- and doubly cool that ELECTRIC COMPANY just happened to be one of my favorite shows growing up! So with every good reason, I'm really happy they're bringing it back! For those of you that are not from my generation, ELECTRIC COMPANY was a hipper version of Sesame Street that taught kids reading skills within the context of musical-comedy shorts and sketches. Exciting that the PS22 Chorus will be a part of television history!

The video shoot was for a song about silent 'E', and with the chorus stars Broadway actor James Iglehart. James appeared in the hit shows Spelling Bee and Smokey Joe's Cafe. The kids loved working with him as he was an excellent and generous performer, allowing the chorus kids their opportunity to shine!

Needless to say, James, along with the entire Electric Company crew, was totally impressed by the professionalism and talent of the PS22 Chorus! On top of that, everybody had a blast filming the show, as can be seen here in this video documenting the experience.

Below are some pics from our incredible day shooting the Electric Company video. As you will see, the kids were afforded star treatment!! Click on any of the pics to enlarge.

Hair, Makeup, And Wardrobe




The ELECTRIC COMPANY Dancers!



The ELECTRIC COMPANY Classroom!


The ELECTRIC COMPANY Gymnasium!

Stay tuned to the blog, and we'll keep you updated as to when the segment featuring the kids is set to air! Hope you all enjoyed the preview!