“Ben’s Radio” starts off as an acoustic guitar-driven piece; random voices in indecipherable languages bounce back and forth over the song’s length. Most of the first side follows this middle eastern theme, “The Imam” starts off as a bouncy acoustic piece, and “Black Orchid” is the first of a few tracks vocals by Jessika Kenney (Gamelan Pacifica, Seattle Harmonic Voices, Sunn0)))) “Vine Street Piano (Orchestral)” closes out the first half of the record as the centerpiece and highlight of the whole album. A gently flowing piano guides the entire piece, with guitars chiming in melodies and beautifully disembodied vocals from Jessika Kenney floating behind the entire thing. The entire song is stunning and perhaps the most hauntingly beautiful song ever recorded by the group.
While the record’s first half follows an eastern feel, the second side changes the tone to something very western. The Ennio Morricone-sounding “Blue West” starts things off, sounding straight out of the composer’s soundtrack work. Vocals ooh in the background while a lead guitar plucks the melody over the rest of the band. “Holy Ground” adds Alan Bishop’s vocals to the mix, singing in English instead of whatever language makes up the first side, while “El Solo” adds some more vocal harmonies from Kenney over Alan’s vocals and Richard’s piano melodies. “Come Maddalena” takes the western theme one step further by covering a Morricone piece. It’s a perfectly executed cover that blends right into the original material of the rest of the side. The title track and album closer is a wash of instruments fading in and out, a trumpet playing a lazy melody, and Gocher freely taps out rhythms behind a meandering bass until the whole thing fades into nothing.
Students publish symphony-inspired storybook
The Charleston Gazette (Charleston, WV) March 2, 2011 | Clint Thomas cthomas@cnpapers.com 304-348-1232 As part of the Arts Integration Program administered through Regional Education Services Agencies (RESA) III and the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, one class at Flinn Elementary School has achieved recent literary acclaim.
The second-grade students in Sharon Adkins’ class signed copies of their self-written and illustrated book, “The Three Little Pigs Visit West Virginia,” on the afternoon of Feb. 22 at the Sissonville area school.
At the book-signing event, Flinn Principal Maria Bird explained that the school was approached by RESA officials last summer to participate in the learning program. “It was amazingly beneficial,” she said.
In November, Robyn Hood Black, author of “Wolves,” visited Flinn and students and teachers visited one of four symphony performances in Charleston for nearly 5,000 state students. At the concert, they were treated to orchestral arrangements of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and “The West Virginia Hills” by WVSO Artistic Director and Conductor Grant Cooper. Cooper has also composed “Song of the Wolf,” a symphonic reimagining of the classic fairy tale “The Three Little Pigs.” After the concert, teachers received the WVSO’s interactive CD- ROMs of lesson plans, resource links and creative writing prompts. creativewritingpromptsnow.net creative writing prompts
Thus artistically and academically inspired, the children in Adkins’ class began collaborating on their book last semester, a retelling of “The Three Little Pigs” set in the Mountain State. The fanciful story included vignettes at the New River Gorge Bridge, Cass Railroad and other notable state venues.
“Our program was used a springboard for telling a common story in a different way,” Cooper said at last week’s assembly in the school library. “In this case, it was the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs.’ They used a combination of words and artwork to create a story centered around West Virginia. in our site creative writing prompts
“We’ve heard over and over from teachers about their amazement at the children’s creativity. Through music being such a concept- oriented language, the students are able to advance their conceptual thinking,” said Cooper.
Along with Cooper, speakers at last week’s reception included RESA Director Chuck Nichols, RESA Staff Development Director Linda Andresen and WVSO Educational Operations Vice President Betty King.
Nichols commended Adkins and the young authors and mentioned that the youths’ signed copies of “The Three Little Pigs Visit West Virginia” would be distributed to officials at this month’s Kanawha County Board of Education meeting.
“We did a variety of things in my class,” Adkins explained last week. “We studied information about West Virginia, tourist attractions, the state bird, those types of things. We used tourism information I picked up at tourist booths. Then we started reading ‘The Alaskan Three Little Pigs’ and decided to bring them to West Virginia for a vacation.
“We brainstormed the characters, drew them, named them and decided what kind of characters they would be,” the teacher said. “We did a little bit of research on the Internet of the places we would use in the story. We started writing on the Smartboard. We’d write a while, read and edit it and plug in some adjectives. I typed it all, and made sure there was a page each child could illustrate.” After each student received his or her own copy of the book, second-grader Jordan Phillips read passages aloud to the audience.
The student authors were Timmy Bailey, Sydney Beckett, Olivia Blount, Steven Carpenter, Hank Comer, Abigail Cunningham, Elijah Goodwin, Emily Jones, Kaylee Jones, Blake Lane, Chris Martin, Macy McKnight, Colin Milam, Logan Monk, Kevin Parsons, Jordan Phillips, Alyssa Soblit, Megan Thaxton, Brandon Shaffer, Authum Shrader and Taylor Slater.
“Their published book will be a milestone in their educational journey,” Adkins said, “because I think it’ll mean something to them for their entire lives.” RESA III encompasses schools in Kanawha, Putnam, Boone and Clay counties. Other elementary schools that have participated this year in the RESA III/WVSO Arts Integration program include Watts, Eastbrook, Whitesville, Clay and Big Otter.
Metro photo by CLINT THOMAS Jordan Phillips shows off the cover of a book written by students of Sharon Adkins at Flinn Elementary School this school year. The students signed copies of the book on Feb. 22 at a program that featured West Virginia Symphony Orchestra Artistic Directo Clint Thomas
