NYC’s schools closed due to the COVID 19 pandemic the week the three first grade classes at the Brooklyn Children’s School were scheduled to perform their operas, which the children had written and composed themselves. I still held out hope at the time that the performances would only be postponed. But schools will remain closed for the rest of the term. The performances won’t happen.
So now, as a poor substitute, I am sharing – in three posts, one for each class – the stories and the music of the three first grade operas that never got their day on the stage. The children have their scripts at home with them, but with this they now also have recordings of their songs to share and sing along.
Just like in class, every recording will start with three piano chords to get ready before the melody starts and you can sing along (or simply follow along reading the words in the score). I used a different “instrument” from my keyboard’s sound library for each melody. For Class 1-3’s songs I used “Steel Guitar”, “Church Organ”, “Vocal Aah”, “Violin”, “Music Box” and “Oboe”. Can you guess which sound is the melody for which song?
CLASS 1-3 OPERA
“The Mysterious Castle”
No dragons or big cats in this story. But a dungeon figures here, if not quite as prominently as in 1-1’s opera.
The story begins up in the skies, where Dana is flying a magic carpet. The carpet can fly because it has been soaked in magic water from a magic pond. Dana is flying to the pond to retrieve more magic water to use it to help Dana’s home village, currently suffering under a food shortage.
SONG #1 – FLYING ON A MAGIC CARPET
Meanwhile, in the Bad Castle, the ruler Caya is counting all the gold in the gold room.
SONG #2 – COUNTING GOLD
The Bad Castle’s dungeon master Bena is unhappy, because Caya has turned Bena’s family into chameleons.
SONG #3 – CHAMELEON FAMILY
Once in the dungeon, Bashlyn yells at the tiger, who backs away and covers his eyes. Then Bashlyn makes fun of the tiger, calling him a big striped baby. The tiger cries.
Jennifer Aniston
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Celeste Holm
Jude Law
Viggo Mortensen
Marni Nixon
Isabella Rossellini
Paul Rudd
Andy Serkis
Christopher Walken
Elijah Wood
It just so happened that Adam Lambert latest lp “Velvet” dropped that very week. I’m a fan and this is his most accomplished album. More importantly every track, even the ballads, crackles with groovy funk beats and dancetastic flights of musical and vocal fancy. I’m compelled to get my disco on, and so in lieu of the gym I instituted daily full album listening sessions as a way to get my daily cardio.
What’s that look like? Well, I basically have not been “getting down” in public like this since attending high school dances many decades ago (I’ve not been much of a clubber or raver, to say less than the least). These pictures I’m including here (after much internal struggle) were taken at 
I confess these photos offer only modest glimpses into my dancercising reality. On my own in our den my gyrations feel a lot less … contained … as I sense from within my own body far from prying eyes, cameras, and mirrors.
There were some technical difficulties with the Q&A, resulting in me being the only director NewFimmaker NY’s program director Brandon Ruckdashel was able to interview; although, as you will see in the video below there was a bit of a sound snafu (mostly in my own ears) at the beginning of our Q&A.
Notes from a Composer 