Mr. Yassky's Music Class

My father dragged my poor mother to a way place upstate called Goose Bay for their honeymoon on September 11, 1946. After a 12 hour train ride to Clayton in the Thousand Islands, they met a one‐armed man, (honest to goodness, his name was Mr. Rogers) at about midnight. So in the early hours of the morning, they loaded their lugage into Mr. Roger's Mahogony Chris Craft and sped off to the island where for the week they would be alone…really alone in a way that most of us don't experience in today's world. This was both hell and heaven on earth, depending on one's perspective. For my mother, a small town girl from Haskell, New Jersey, this was no picnic. Ice box, Gas lights only, a wind-up Victrola and all the fresh water you could pump from the St. Lawrence River was not exactly an escape from what she had gown up with. For my Dad born in Harlem, and fresh from three years in the South Pacific during WWII, there was no better tonic. This vacation schedule lasted for about fourteen years and was vacation for me and my sister's early years. Sadly, Roger's Island was sold in the early 1960's and that ended the family trek to the Thousand Islands. But for a few years after, my dad and I were able to rent a nearby even smaller island "Lone Pine" where we went for a few years until we lost track of the owner.

Flash forward about forty years later to a couple of summers ago. I had decided to take my own family to the Thousand Islands to see what it was like after all these years. Amazingly enough, the area had not changed that much and was still  very much in pristine condition. We rented a boat and took a trip north on the St. Lawrence. I had no idea where we were going but something kept me enroute to Goose Bay and amazingly enough, I spotted the small house in the picture above where my Dad and I had stayed in 1971. All the sensations and smells of nature came back and I wondered what my Mom would have thought of it that day.

In this frame grab from video shot on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011 and made available by NASA, astronaut Catherine Coleman, right, holds her flute aboard the International Space Station during an interview. One of the flutes is her own. Two belong to members of the Irish group “The Chieftains.” And one belongs to the flutist with the Jethro Tull band. Coleman says she prefers creating music with other people. But she’s the only flutist among the six-member space station crew. So she puts flute music on in the background, and plays along. (AP Photo/NASA) Original Filename: Flutes in Space.JPEG-03546.jpg 

 

 

Billy and Steven Roues Play the Blues at SOMS

I'm pleased to announce that we received a  2011  Arts in Education Grant from the Arts Council of Rockland for our Music Explore Program at SOMS. This is funded from NYSCA, the New York State Council on the Arts.  Blues masters, Billy and Steven Roues presented a three part seminar on the Delta Blues and it's influence on Rock n' Roll to our current 8th grade Explore class . The seminar concluded on March 10 with a concert for approximately seventy 8th grade students.

Essay:  A Genius Finds Inspiration in the Music of Another 
By ARTHUR I. MILLER

Albert Einstein was fascinated by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and sensed an affinity between their creative processes. 

Follow this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/science/31essa.html?emc=eta1

All Music Explore Sixth graders learn to play the "Ode to Joy" on piano and visit the house where Ludwig van Beethoven was born and grew up in. You can too. Follow this link:http://www.beethoven-haus-bonn.de/sixcms/detail.php?template=portal_en

This site is devoted to the music classes taught by Charles Yassky at Cottage Lane Elementary School and the South Orangetown Middle School. All comments are welcome that will positively further the impact of music education on our students, their families and the greater community at large.