"And The Painted Ponies Go Up And Down" To Perform At Women In History Ceremony sponsored by N.Y.C. Councilman Mike McMahon!

Here is a breathtaking rendition of the beautiful song by Joni Mitchell, "The Circle Game", which is on her album Ladies Of The Canyon.


The chorus only finished learning the song the day of this rehearsal at which it was recorded. But I so love this rendition, despite the fact that the kids understandably struggled a bit with the words. (You can hear me feeding them the lines at points if you listen closely!) :) It's particularly moving to watch Ashleigh and the rest of the chorus singing their hearts out here!

So last night, the kids sang "The Circle Game" and more at the annual Women in History Ceremony sponsored by N.Y.C. Councilman Mike McMahon, a wonderful and generous friend to the PS22 Chorus. Below are some pics from the chorus' performance last night, for which they received another well-deserved standing O! Ashleigh rocked the house with her soloing on "No No No" by the Voices of East Harlem! Justin and Angela sang poignantly on the amazing song,"Valor", by former student (and current brilliant songwriter), Andrew Canlon. The song is from his group's self-titled album, O'Canlon, which comes highly recommended!!

The chorus with their friend and supporter, Councilman Mike MacMahon!
Getting psyched up to do a great job.....
"And the seasons -- they go round and round" -- Joni Mitchell

Justin and Angela singing their hearts out....
Chillin' with the sopranos!
The adorable Natalie!

Mr. B with Mrs. Donath, PS22's superb new principal whom, needlessly to say, was very proud of her chorus that night!

We Made The Finals! So Start Voting!!

Okay, it's time for everyone to start placing their votes for The PS22 Chorus Remix (with original music by Barry Leitch) of "We're Brothers Forever" at our brother Renaldo Lapuz's website!

Weeks ago the chorus did their part to create this remix with their amazing harmonies!! Barry Leitch, another friend to the chorus, did the mixing and the original dance music! Now YOU can help support the PS22 Chorus by voting for our video!! Just click on the link below:

VOTE NOW - The Final 12 in the Remix Idol Contest! For the title of Best Renaldo Remix in the WORLD!

We are REMIX #4! Scroll down towards the bottom to enter your vote!

UPDATE (3/19): Only 1 vote per e-mail address, period! They are tallying the total sum of ALL votes, rather than doing a week to week elimination as originally planned.

In case you haven't seen our contest entry, you can see it on the voting page or right here:

Yes Yes Yes!!! It's "No No No"!!!

OK!! We're ready to present a new song from this year's mind-blowing chorus! Check out "No No No" by Voices Of East Harlem, an amazing choral group popular back in the 70's! Although they are not nearly as widely known as they should be, Voices Of East Harlem have 4 brilliant albums: Right On Be Free (the album that contains "No No No"), Brothers & Sisters, Voices Of East Harlem (self-titled), and Can You Feel It. Their music comes highly recommended!

So here's the PS22 Chorus featuring the astounding ASHLEIGH with their rendition of Voices Of East Harlem's, "No No No"!!! The chorus discovers another phenomenal soloist in Ashleigh, and she does us AND the song proud!


VIDEO DOWN

If you missed the posting of our chorus from 2005 performing "Simple Song Of Freedom" at Radio City Music Hall, here it is again! This is another great song by the Voices Of East Harlem (from the same album actually), and Sierra does a knock-out job on the solo!!

The Chorus Gets A Message From TWO Amazing Super-Groups!!!

Despite having a little vacation for President's week, it has been an exciting week for the chorus!! We got 2 differents sets of "thumbs up" for our performances of our covers of Crowded House's song "Private Universe" and Alpha's "Blue Autumn"! Here are their respective messages....

Neil Finn (lead singer of Crowded House):

"I wanted to send a note to say how delighted I was to hear and see the PS22 Choir performing my song."

"It's a fantastic arrangement and they look like they are having such a great time.
Thank you so much for making my day."

Corin Dingley (of Alpha):

"We came across [your video of Blue Autumn] and are quite overwhelmed. Corin of Alpha is quite humbled by it. It was really lovely to watch."

"Yes it really touched me, the kids have sung it so well they must be really pleased with themselves. Really fantastic, by far the best 'remix' we have ever had.

Cheers
Corin"

This is indeed a testament to the amazing work the chorus has been doing over the years, and a great thrill for all involved! Big thanks to Neil and Corin for taking the time to recognize the kids and their dedication to their music! As Corin said, you kids should be really pleased with yourselves! Big congratulations to the chorus!!!!

In case you missed these videos, here they are:

Crowded House's Private Universe:


Alpha's Blue Autumn:
VIDEO DOWN

We're Brothers Forever....REMIX!!!

Recently, an unbelievable musician by the name of Barry Leitch contacted me, interested in recording a remix of Renaldo Lapuz and The PS22 Chorus singing "We're Brothers Forever", the soon-to-be hit song from this season's American Idol!! All together, the remixes we produced for Renaldo's song have scored over 30,000 hits!

The chorus got to see and hear the remix for the first time today, and needless to say, EVERYONE was blown away!! So here are the long awaited mp3s of Renaldo Lapuz's original song:

Renaldo Lapuz & PS22 Chorus "We're Brothers Forever" EPIC remix
(Music & Remix by Barry Leitch)

"We're Brothers Forever" CHORUS remix
(Music by Barry Leitch, Vocal Remix by Gregg Breinberg)

PS22 Chorus "We're Brothers Forever" a capella version

We're Brothers Forever remix RINGTONE

And last, but not last, here is the AMAZING video also created by Barry for his amazing EPIC mix, featuring Renaldo and the Chorus.....

More American Idol.....

With all the excitement about the new season of American Idol (as well as our new video of Renaldo Lapuz's, "I Am Your Brother" which has been getting a lot of internet attention -- over 3000 views in only 3 days!!), I decided to add a new link to the sidebar of the blog for highlights from our OWN American Idol competitions from 2003 and 2005. Both shows featured some mind-blowing talent and performances!

To celebrate the debut of our new showcase feature, here is a newly added clip of Noshavyah's amazing audition of the Deniece Williams classic, "Silly" from 2003. BRILLIANT!

We're On Our Brother Renaldo's Website!

Last night, I sent Renaldo Lapuz (the American Idol 7 hopeful responsible for the soon-to-be hit song "We're Brothers Forever") the link to our version of his infectious tune. I thought he would get a kick out of seeing just how much the kids got into it! (If you haven't seen yourself, scroll down to the previous post.) So this morning I got a response from Renaldo:

"I love it! I will put it towards the top of the front page shortly so
visitors from all over the world can enjoy it!"

"Tell the kids WONDERFUL job and that they will be responsible for make
thousands from across the world smile tomorrow!"

"Thank you all my brothers and sisters!!!"

We appreciate the message from Renaldo, and thank him for his uplifting and inescapable tune! And by the way, true to his word, Renaldo has the PS22 Chorus version of his song featured as the first video on his webpage www.renaldolapuz.com !!!!

"We're Brothers Forever"

Okay, don't say you weren't warned! (See previous post.) Here is the rather amusing and catchy (like a disease) song by Renaldo Lapuz, the memorable auditioning American Idol Season 7 hopeful who certainly earned his 15 minutes of fame. The kids learned Renaldo's song today, I filmed it, and now we bring it to you....

VIDEO DOWN

Okay, on behalf of the entire chorus, I humbly and sincerely apologize for the above video.... Just kidding! We love you Renaldo! Keep singing the songs, the music that you li-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike!

**Update 2-5-08**
Download mp3s and watch the remix of "We're Brothers Forever" featuring the PS22 Chorus"

It's coming......

......the song you've been eagerly dreading....

But in the meantime, here are some pics we took today while recording the small group version (yes, we recorded two versions....) in the morning. Here are Isaiah, Isaac, and Justin with Angela, Allie, and Sandrea.

Come Peak Inside Our "Private Universe!"

Here is a beautiful song by the New Zealand group, Crowded House, called "Private Universe." It has always been a favorite of mine, and it occurred to me, that it would make a phenomenal song for the chorus. Soloist Kareem & the rest of the group prove me right!

Three Quarters of a MILLION Chorus Videos & Counting....

The kids have reached another milestone today, as they celebrate 750,000 viewings of PS22 Chorus videos over the internet! An amazing accomplishment for any musician, and that much more for public elementary school children! Congrats!

Chorus: Generations....

Recently, I was happily surprised to be contacted by one of my favorite students from way back in the day -- the school year of 1998-1999 at P.S.60 to be precise, when and where I started my teaching career. Andrew Canlon always had a phenomenal voice, and was a soloist at his graduation. These days he's taking his talent to a whole new level. At 19 years old, Andrew has been writing and recording some phenomenal music with his band, O'Canlon. Andrew was kind enough to send me his band's CD, titled "VALOR". The title track (and the entire CD) blew me away! I felt it would be a perfect song for the chorus to cover. So today, I recorded the chorus performing "Valor" after only 3 rehearsals. They sound incredible, and we're cautiously optimistic that Andrew and his bandmates will approve of our rendition! We're looking forward to a possible visit from Andrew in June, and hopefully we'll be able to record a version with the man himself when the time comes. We thank Andrew for sharing this great song, and for being an inspiration for the entire chorus, including the director of course. Talk about life coming full circle....

In the meantime, here is the song "Valor" as performed by the PS22 Chorus: