Peter Makes His Debut

On today's date in 1936, Prokofiev's delightful music fable for children, "Peter and the Wolf," was given its first performance in Moscow.

The woman who had approached composer Sergei Prokofiev with the idea for "Peter and the Wolf" was Natalia Saz, then the Director of the Moscow Children's Theater. Prokofiev had only recently returned to the Soviet Union after decades of living abroad. The idea was to interest children in the sound of the orchestra through a musical fable for narrator and orchestra, in which the winds would depict different animals, with the strings representing a little boy named Peter, who rescues almost all his animal friends from the jaws of a nasty wolf.

We are learning about this story in our Young Child 2 class.

Happy Birthday Duke Ellington!

On today's date in 1899, Edward Kennedy Ellington was born in Washington, DC.

The son of a former White House butler, Elllington was born into a comfortable middle-class African-American household. After some piano lessons from an aptly named Miss Klinkscales, Ellington composed his first original piece, "The Soda Fountain Rag." As early mentors, Ellington credited a local dance bandleader, Oliver "Doc" Perry and a high school music teacher named Henry Grant, who introduced him to contemporary classical masters like Debussy.

"I had a kind of harmony inside me," Ellington later recalled. "a harmony which is part of my race, but I needed harmony that has no race at all but is universal. So you see, from both these men I received freely and generously. I repaid them as I could, by playing piano for Mr. Perry, and by learning all I could from Mr. Grant."

Always a stylish dresser, Ellington was nicknamed "The Duke" by friends, and after a stint with Doc Perry's band, while still in his teens, he took a five-man dance band to New York. That ensemble grew to 11 men by 1930 and to an orchestra of 19 by 1946. It was an ensemble of jazz virtuosos, and for them Ellington would compose some 2000 original compositions, a body of work extensively documented in public and private recordings, and now regarded as one of the most astonishing musical accomplishments of the 20th century.

Courtesy of Composers Datebook.

Leap Year Trivia

Leap Year Day Babies born in 1884 had no birthday during their entire teen-age years. Why Because 1900 was not a Leap Year. In 1888 they were 4 at 1. In 1892 they were 8 at 2. In 1896 they were 12 at 3. Since 1900 was nota Leap Year, there were 8 years before they could celebrate again on February 29. So, in 1904 they were 20 at 5. Not one single teenage year was celebrated ON their birth date.

Leap Year Day Babies will never have a "Golden Birthday." A Golden Birthday is when your age matches the number of the day of the month you were born on. Leap Year Day Babies will have to be 116 before they turn 29 on the 29th!

Once every four years we have the opportunity to wish the great Italian opera composer Gioacchino Rossini a happy birthday -- he was born on February 29th in 1792.

The American Bicentennial Year of 1976, was also a Leap Year.

The Land of Honalee Returns

Peter Yarrow and Lenny Lipton have not allowed a picture book adaptation of Puff, the Magic Dragon until now. Click on the image to learn more about this beautiful picture book.

Pachelbel Bedtime

KM Graduate's Mom Offers Specials ...

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I Couldn't Say This Any Better . . .

Music Video:LET THEM BE LITTLE (by Billy Dean)

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Thanks Yvette

Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted. Garrison Keillor

Nintendo Guitar?

From this ...

To this . . .

Click here to see the process . . .

Red Raven

More interesting info on retro recordings . . . have the kids look for the Raven . . .



These were cardboard children's records with the animation printed right onto the disc itself (later versions like the one above had the animation on the label of regular colored vinyl). The Red Raven included a little mirrored device that you pop onto the turntable's spindle that reflected the animation in such a way that while the record plays you get to see a little cartoon.

The effect is rather hypnotic (the mirrored device is an ersatz praxinoscope for all of you optics junkies), and a neat addition to the typical children's fare on the record itself. Sixteen Magic Mirror Movie records were released by Red Raven (making for 32 animations of course).

Copied from Retro Thing

Kiddie Rekords

Molly got me thinking with her guitar posts and I stumbled on this site today while looking for a story I remembered listening to when I was younger - One String Fiddle. It was part of a record set at my grandparents house that my mom listened to when she was growing up. I would love to be able to find those 78's . . .