All City Strings

There are thousands of them! Well, 115 to be exact. This year I am proud to be one of the All City Strings conductors for May 2nd’s 131st TDSB Spring Concert at Roy Thompson Hall. These strings kids are from all over the city and include eight IRC Grade 6s! The piece I’m conducting is “CN Tower” by Toronto’s Owen Pallett and he’s coming to the dress rehearsal. Amazing.

Jazz show amazes all!!

IRC junior students and the JazzFM Youth Big Band amazed our audience with swinging jazz standards and African-American singing games. Thank you to all students and parents for supporting music education!! En plus, we raised $300 for Sistema Toronto (google them)!

Nina Simone soloists

My grade 4-6s are swingin and groovin through their jazz tunes for our April 4th concert: Jazz Origins to Originals. The JazzFM Youth Big Band is going to come and be our backup players!! Above are the auditioned soloists for our Nina Simone finale. They’re a little excited…

Practice makes better!

These dedicated Guitar Club students practised at recess, determined to figure out how to strum and pic “Oh When the Saints.” I haven’t given the students music, asking them to really rely on their listening ears. Grades 4-6s are learning all about the history of Jazz and gearing up for a Jazz concert on April 4th!

Autograph chaos

Sometimes I love creating a little controlled chaos. There were left over programs from our “Secret Lives of Toads” play so I had the actors bring pens outside to recess and passed out programs to the younger students – “I got 7 autographs, Ms Fraser!!”