new choir members and Kenny Dorham's Backyard

Friday, October 22 marked the first performance for many of this year's new choir members, as well as the Superstar Choir's first performance at Kenny Dorham's Backyard -- located outside the historic Victory Grill. Knowing as I do, that if my choir members go home after school, they often are not able to make it back to school, I decided to feed them all after our regular rehearsal from 3:00 -- 4:30 ("regular" except we sat down the whole time!), then it would be time to get on the bus. I got considerable help from parents on this trip, as a couple got pizza donated by Eastside Pies, and Pizza Patron and they picked up the pizza and brought it to us. I also had several help out with getting the group to the venue and back safely -- several rode the bus with us. Out of forty-six choir members, we had exactly forty who participated in this performance. This was awesome! Presented by Diverse Arts (thanks Howard McMillan), the Fourth Friday event at Kenny Dorham's Backyard celebrates African-American cultural contributions in the heart of Austin's African American historic district. We had some of our new choir members who were a little apprehensive about being on that stage for the first time, but once they started singing, it was all good! Leadership from our choir veterans has been excellent, and this year 12 of those veterans are fifth-graders (an all-time high number). Thanks to Mr. Brett Lee of Austin Prime Time (which provides the Superstar Choir with some support such as money for buses, some equipment, etc) for making it to the show. We also had lots of support from teachers/staff -- thanks all!

...a few more pics from Old Pecan Street

Fall 2010 Old Pecan Street Festival

We had sixteen of our twenty returning choir member take the stage for our return to the Old Pecan Street festival. Once again, a great turnout by parents, and some of our school staff as well -- including our interim principal Mr. Artie Arce. This show was one of the best that I can remember. The sound of the group was very tight and focused, and the sound guys did their best (in spite of having to swap out a fried mixing board in the middle of our set). The weather even cooperated this year with some very mild temperatures.

Spring 2010

Highlights of Spring 2010 included performing at the Marathon Kids Final Mile celebration (another stadium), another Austin Marathon performance (very early, very cold), getting better with our "new" sound -- drummers are getting more comfortable adding fills and coming up with their own parts to songs, another Dia de la familia performance, and lastly, not performing at the Old Pecan Street festival (new management/communication problems). Last year, we took an end-of-year trip to go bowling which was a lot of fun -- this year, choir members voted for skating. Lots of fun (and entertaining!). Lastly, we had another goodbye to say -- this time to our principal for the last six years, Dr. Anna Pedroza who is now "director of special programs" for AISD. Thanks for the support Ms. Dr. P.!

Moving on...

What do you do when the bottom falls out? You get a new bottom! I had had time to think about how to solve this problem for a while and had been thinking about getting some drums -- bass and a floor (or low) tom, and may as well have a snare while we are at it! I was not looking forward to the idea of starting choir in the Fall with the uncertainty of what we were going to do in the air. I happened to look on craigslist two days before school was out in the spring, and found a bass drum and a low tom sold as a pair (I already had a snare). Perfect. We rehearsed for a couple of hours and performed with this configuration at an End-of Year school function called the "Starwalk," which is our way of saying goodbye to our 5th graders who are going on to middle school, and to staff who will not be returning. It was a success and we were able to end the year knowing that we would be alright in the Fall of 2009. When the Fall got here, I was not completely happy with the sound, so I switched to baritone guitar, and did lots of musical re-arranging so that I could mix bass lines with "regular" guitar stuff. We were ready to go with this configuration after three weeks -- just in time for our Fall performance at the old Pecan Street Festival I would say that it has been a success, as we have not slowed down at all! Just as adding the stomp energized our group a few years ago, the drums have taken that energy up another level! More pics coming...

Spring 2009

Highlights: Austin Marathon -- being one of 40 groups to perform along the route. More "service learning" for the Superstar Choir. Approximately 15,000 runners pay $80 -$90 to participate in this event, largely of course, because of all the music along the route. This money goes to benefit several local charities. It was something new for choir members to see all of these people out there pursuing their running goal. It was kind of strange though, because we thought we were there to cheer on the runners, but they kind of turned things around -- what a great audience! This Spring also saw us making our second (or was it our third?) Dia de la familia appearance at Austin Community College -- great to share a stage with Los Texas Wranglers. This is a great family event with lots of activities for the kids, and information about community services and organizations for all ages. Among other performances, another Old Pecan Street appearance -- not sure why, but I always seem to have better luck getting pictures from this event! On a sadder note, this would be our last performance with our bass player Mr. Parks -- he was being transferred to another campus. Thanks for the music, and Adios!

Fall 2008

We continued to be active during 2007-2008, still rehearsing twice per week for an hour and a half each day for just about the entire school year. It was the Fall of 2008 when we had a few new performance events that were pretty big for us. The first of these was performing at the Old Pecan Street Festival at the end of just the third week of the school year -- pretty awesome to be able to have over 45 minutes of material that early in the year -- definitely a big step and a big statement for our group ad what we are capable of doing. Next we immediately added new choir members who joined us after just two weeks to perform for the Marathon Kids Kickoff Event at Mike Myers stadium/University of Texas. This event is attended by thousands of students in the district, as well as lots of UT athletes, local dignitaries, and even Lance Armstrong -- the kids had a blast. They also all wound up being Marathon Kids themselves! The next big thing was performing at our local historically African-American college, Huston Tillotson University for a taping of News8's "Sounds of the Season," which would subsequently be broadcast over fifty times. The News8 pictures are actual pictures of my actual TV -- the only surviving pics I have from this event.