OUR 12TH ANNUAL NATIONAL GATHERING

Workshop Schedule and Locations

SATURDAY A.M. - Session One (9:15 am-10:30 am)

(Sessions with an * are especially good for children)

Creative Movement to Autumn and Halloween Instrumental Music! Joanie loves to vary her song programs by including creative movement to instrumental pieces that are connected thematically. Come explore methods to tell the musical story of a piece through creative movement. Joanie started her career teaching Suzuki piano, added preschool music classes, and then began doing family song programs. She truly believes that when we are allowed to move to music, we "learn" it better!

We will cover folk styles, theory, and blues -- all in 75 minutes! Bring a harmonica (key of C major is best) or purchase one at the workshop for $5.00. Wiley Rankin has played harmonica with Les Paul and members of The Yardbirds, and has even been sighted with his harmonica on "The Doctor Demento Show."

Woody Guthrie, one of our most significant songmakers of the 20th century, wrote some of his -- and America's -- greatest songs for kids. Let's celebrate them with Ted Warmbrand and Valerie Kosednar, who have felt their sparkle and skimmed their waters for over 30 years; singing them up from our memory's garden, and out from under the forgotten rocks of time. Ted Warmbrand is a long-time PMN member and sometime songmaker from Tucson, Arizona. He is a regular programmer of "Music from the Living Room", KXCI 91.3 FM in Tucson, and a producer of concerts for Itzaboutime. Valerie Kosednar is a singer and teacher of young musicians. Until recently Valerie was at The Little Red Schoolhouse in New York City; she now resides in Vermont where she conducts the Community Children's Chorus in Saxtons River and sings in the group Emerald Stream.

Find eight great ways to nurture self-esteem and disability awareness through music. We will discuss the development of self-esteem in children and share a lot of music! Bring your favorites! Fran Friedman draws from her background (Ph.D. in Audiology and Neuropsychology) to discuss the development of self-esteem and disability awareness. She hung up her otoscope after 24 years to follow her other passions: music and working with children. Along the way Fran has made 3 award-winning recordings.

Ruth Pelham has just returned from a visit to Sri Lanka where she was hosted by people working for peace and nonviolence in the most challenging of circumstances. Come and share her experience. Ruth Pelham is a singer-songwriter, board member of CMN and director of Music Mobile in Albany, New York.

Martin's hands-on workshop offers practical lessons in guiding K-6 and beyond in developing original lyrics to familiar tunes -- "Piggyback" songs. It's a great learning and memory tool! FUN guaranteed, discussion encouraged. Martin Swinger, Maine folk musician, teaches songwriting to K-6 and presents workshops for teachers on songwriting in the classroom. He has taught at Kerrville, Boston, and Turtle Hill Folk Festivals and appears in the "All Songs Issue" of PIO! 2002 Gathering Workshops - p.2 

SATURDAY P.M. - Session Two (1:00 pm - 2:15 pm)

Improvisation is a moment -to -moment experience which allows a person to take a leap from the familiar into the unknown. In this workshop we will have a lot of fun using drums, simple instruments, hand percussion, sticks, movement and voices, allowing participants to be exposed to various rhythms and encouraging them to create their own rhythms and present them to the group. Bring your own instruments, drums, voices and hands for clapping. Thomasina, with an M.S. in Education, uses music to help students of all ages discover their own creative spirits. In 1999 she became part of the Connecticut Commission on the Arts' Master Teaching Artist Program. Thomasina has recordings for both children and adults and she was included in Mel Bay Publications Dulcimer 2000 book, which features solos by the world's best mountain dulcimer players.

In this workshop tips and exercises will be offered to better prepare us for handling all those Great Unexpectations: UCO's (Unidentified Crawling Objects), Under-chaperoned Overexuberants, PA interruptions, technical disasters, fire drills -- you name it -- all these performance curveballs can happen. Come hear ideas of how some can be prevented, others ignored and still others need to be dealt with. (Recommended for performers with some experience.) Jackson has been pitched many curves in his varied performing career. He's been hit by some, struck out at others, walked, fouled, has deftly slammed some back, but is always learning.

Winter Holiday Songs - Bring your favorite songs that help celebrate the many wonderful holidays in winter: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Soltice, and other songs that give light to nature's darkest season. Kate Munger lives, works, swims and sings in California on the shores of Tomales Bay. She draws inspiration from singing, believes in the healing power of song, sees the human family being nurtured and sustained by music and singing, has led round singing circles for 25 years and is the founder of Threshold Choirs, women who are called to sing at the bedsides of people who are dying.

We will sing songs that have been published in PIO! Bring and lead your favorite(s)! Give us a chance to hear how you sing them and use them, and let us all enjoy the wonderful songs that we members have seen, but may not have heard, before. Nancy Silber has been a member of CMN since PIO! Issue #4. She teaches music and directs children's choruses, and she is now the editor of PIO!

How do we share songs that name and celebrate differences without making different "strange"? Share songs that help children (and adults) acknowledge and discuss the many ways people and families are different. Mara Sapon-Shevin is a professor of education and long-time peace and social justice activist. She is active in working with schools to promote the full inclusion of all students and the creation of cooperative school communities, and gives workshops on cooperative learning and cooperative games for the classrooms. She's also the author of many articles on cooperative learning, full inclusion, diversity education and teaching for social justice.

Participants (children ages 6-12 and any so-called grownups who'd like to observe) will create a totally original song, both lyrics and music, on the topic of their choice, with the option of performing it during the round-robin session that evening. Jon Gailmor has been performing for prenatal through prehistoric audiences worldwide for 30 years, in every setting under the sun. He presents songwriting workshops and residencies in schools and colleges, at conferences and for any group of people who want to create a song about anything. He has released five albums and lives in Elmore, Vermont.

SATURDAY P.M. - Session Three (4:00 pm - 5:15 pm)

(all ages welcome) The emphasis for this workshop will be simple games that really work with very young children. Learn some of my tried and true favorites and share some of yours. Kathy Reid-Naiman is a full time children's performer teaching music and movement in libraries and schools in Ontario. She shares her love of traditional music using songs, rhymes, tickles, knee bounces and singing games.

Sally Rogers is currently developing ideas for a community sound garden, which includes flowers with noisy names and instruments made by students out of found objects. This workshop is open to others who are interested in the topic or would like to start their own sound garden. If you have ideas for instruments suited for the out of doors, please bring them! Sally Rogers is a long-time CMN member and is currently a music teacher in Pomfret, Connecticut, after a lengthy career as a touring musician, songwriter and recording artist.

Children (and adults) can make beautiful harmony easily by singing rounds! Let's share ideas for exciting part-singing for children through this simple but often sophisticated-sounding form. Explore a variety of types of rounds for children of all ages (rhythmic, with motions, simple, complex, in different musical styles, with sound effects, with dramatizations, catches, cyclical songs, etc.) and bring favorites to share. Joanne Hammil is a composer, educator and performer. She directs several choruses in the Boston area and presents concerts, workshops and community sings throughout the country. She has 2 recordings of her original children's songs and is just finishing 2 CDs of 54 of her original rounds and partner songs.

 Bring your voices, ideas and favorite songs to this playful round robin, which targets audiences 3rd grade through high school. Let's share songs that have curriculum and/or social relevance, with brief introductions as to why these songs work for older kids. Bring your cassette recorder if you want to take songs home with you! Janice Buckner has been performing nationally for 25 years now (yikes!) and presents approximately 200 shows each year. She offers educational song concerts on sixteen topics (such as Self-Esteem, Peace, Ecology) and is a certified teacher in five areas, pre-K - high school.

Join Tom for a nuts-and-bolts approach to using songs interactively -- encouraging interruptions, questions, stories, adding words and verses, wondering out loud -- in order to increase participation and create environments where kids can really be heard. Tom Hunter has a busy schedule of keynotes, seminars, assemblies, and family concerts. Willie Nelson recorded one of his songs, HarperCollins made one into a kid's book, but mostly he likes listening to kids make sense of the world.

Sing, dance, and march your way through the different parts of the day. This workshop will introduce you to various techniques to help you guide your children through various transition times (i.e., sitting for circle, getting ready to go outside, attention getting). Come prepared to share musical classroom ideas that work for you. Christine Porter and Diana Kane are music specialists in and around the Boston area through the company YoungSong, created by Christine in 1999. Using their combined fifteen years of experience, they travel to preschools and share musical experiences with young children.

SUNDAY A.M. - Session Four (9:00 am - 10:15 am)

Join in the spontaneity of playing rhythm instruments in large groups using simple structures to minimize the chaos as you invite it to be part of the experience. This is useful for preschool and elementary ages. Bring any tips you may have to share; instruments are provided. Kathy Lowe lives in New London, New Hampshire, and has worked with young children for 13 years. She is a songer/songwriter/ recording artist/music therapist.

This presenter will offer one out-of-the-box approach to teaching private music lessons to children. The essence of the workshop will be discussion, and we will search our musical souls for the rationale behind traditional and other approaches to private study. Participants will be asked to contribute their views and anecdotes to this thought-provoking session. Meryl Danziger teaches music at The Little Red School House in New York City and is the founder and director of The Music House. A professional violinist for many years, she developed a passion for teaching upon discovering that she could invent her own approach. Meryl writes plays and songs for children, and her articles have been published in NEA Today as well as several home-schooling journals.

Come share your favorite tickles, lap bounces, fingerplays and songs for the youngest members of our community. Even the very youngest children respond to rhythm, sound dynamics and visual stimulation, all with music as a vehicle. Tina Stone is a Music Specialist with infants through school-age children in the New England area. A former preschool and kindergarten teacher, she now is a singer/storyteller with young children and their families.

Ellen Bowman has been using music therapy with children of all abilities and all ages for 20 years. Come learn songs and techniques she uses to actively involve kids- connecting them with their lives and bodies -- and share your own as well. Ellen Bowman, from Readfield, Maine, is a university instructor and a musician in a contradance band. She serves as a music consultant to preschool programs and teaches music to young children.

Our children, our families and teachers deal with child abuse, loss and grief, chemical dependency, financial instability, terrorism and a host of other emotionally packed issues. How can we lift our audiences with song when it's difficult to keep our own heads and spirits up and out of the sand? How do we laugh about life while we face the serious events that surround us? Peter Alsop is a singer/songwriter, lecturer and humorist. He is a Certified Experiential Therapist, and has a Ph.D. in educational psychology. His songs are used by thousands of parents, doctors, educators and other human service professionals to help families discuss sensitive issues such as sexual abuse, disabilities, grief, chemical dependency and family violence. His albums have won six Best Children's Music awards from Parent's Choice and AFIM.

In this workshop we will share ideas for using quiet songs/lullabies as a quieting and comforting influence in a performance and in the classroom, with any age. Bring thoughts and a song -- it needn't be a traditional lullaby! A recent graduate of Emerson College, Laura has been studying and experimenting with song as a way of dealing with the world, ourselves, and each other. Lullabies are her special genre because of their amazing potential to comfort and connect.