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| Make this a special holiday for the music lover in your life! |
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Donate the gift of music with GITC in honor of a friend, family member,or co-worker and we'll send a beautiful, framed GITC certificate of honor with their name and yours. Visit guitarsintheclassroom.org
for more information.
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| Normandy Guitars |
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GITC welcomes Normany Guitars as its newest and most comical corporate sponsor! Normandy endorses the work of GITC in its forthcoming comic book, Psycho Guitar Killers! Anyone who makes a donation will receive a free copy while supplies last.
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Did you know that searching the Internet can help fund GITC?
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What if GITC earned a penny every time you searched the Internet?
Or how about if a percentage of every purchase our supporters made
online went to support our cause? Well, now it can!
GoodSearch.com is a new Yahoo-powered search engine that donates
half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the
charities its users designate. Use it just as you would any search
engine, get quality search results from Yahoo, and watch the donations
add up!
GoodShop.com is a new online shopping mall which donates up to 37
percent of each purchase to your favorite cause! Hundreds of great
stores including Amazon, Target, Gap, Best Buy, ebay, Macy's and Barnes
& Noble have teamed up with GoodShop and every time you place an
order, youʼll be supporting bringing music to classrooms all over
America!
Just go to www.goodsearch.com and be sure to enter GUITARS IN THE
CLASSROOM as the charity you want to support. Thanks so much for
helping GITC spread the word!
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Volunteer Opportunity with GITC!
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GITC is looking for volunteer help in these areas: - Web assistance
- PR
- Fundraising
- Video Documentation
Please let us know if you'd like to
get involved! E-mail jess.gitc@sbcglobal.net |
Disney Ask The Experts: Jessica Baron
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Our Executive Director, Jessica Baron, was recently
appointed by Disney as a parenting expert on their new music education website.
Click on the picture to hear from Jessica and other experts as they discuss raising your
child in a musical household!
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Please help Guitars In The Classroom get music making back in the Schools with your end of year contribution. Click here to find out more. |
A letter from our executive director....
Happy holidays, Friends of GITC!
On behalf of those of us behind the scenes to each you in the classroom or at work helping us get the music out there, thank you so much for making this past year a creative and musical one for so many teachers and students!
The past twelve months have seen our staff and faculty connecting, our instructors collaborating on classroom music in both Spanish and English, and more teachers than ever enjoying and sharing their newfound talents and skills with students in their classrooms. New programs started in Washington D.C., Virginia, Louisiana, Michigan, Illinois, New Mexico, Washington state, and California, and even more programs will soon begin in Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, New Jersey, North Carolina, California, and Colorado! You are bringing music making to classrooms from coast to coast!
The most encouraging change from my perspective is that many schools are developing funding for GITC training before contacting us to request a new program. Four years ago, NAMM and GAMA helped us launch and seed new GITC programs with their generous grants. The intention was to give this work a chance to take root. Now schools are beginning to ask to bring this work into their districts as equal partners!
This means that the roots we hoped to establish have truly taken hold. Now we are on our way to sprouting some very fine wings.
Thank you to all who have believed and given over the years, and to those of you who are now investing your time and talent to make sure our schools become more musical and nurturing places for children. You are restoring and revitalizing classroom music making, and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to serve you and support your efforts. 2009 promises to be extraordinary.
Wishing each of you joyful holidays a deeply gratifying new year!
Yours for the children,
Jessica
Jessica Anne-Baron
Executive Director of GITC
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Latest News
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Guitars in The Classroom thanks Kaman Music for their help in launching a Chicago program. This summer, our Executive Director Jessica Baron, and GITC Santa Barbara instructor Michele Harris-Padron trained 70 early childhood educators in the GITC approach at El Valor, in an innovative child development organization serving urban families in Chicago's historical Pilsen district, and on Chicago's south side. Kaman supplied all of the guitars.
GITC is also grateful to Dick Lowenthal and all of the generous contributors from the Chicago area who made the launch of this program possible. At our website, under "sponsors" please visit our brand new thank you page to see who else has made this and other programs possible. Special thanks to Danny Surico for teaching this program and sending us these great photos.
Music For Life Alliance
The Music for Life Alliance will be presenting an award of $500 to GITC toward the expansion of its program in Chicago at Muriel Andersons 17th annual Saturday After Thanksgiving Concert with Lily Afshar and Vicky Genfan (GITC artist advisor), in Downers Grove, Illinois. For more information about the music for life alliance please visit www.musicforlifealliance.com. To join GITC at Muriel's concert, please go to www.murielanderson.com
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Teacher Feature |
 Meet Katie Swain, a student in Uiversity of California, Berkeley's Developmental Teacher Education program! For three years, UC Berkeley has been blazing the trail for integrating music in a Social Studies method course under the direction of professor Della Peretti, master teacher and the coordinator of DTE. Guitars in the Classroom is now a credited, mandatory course for all DTE students.
Katie used her borrowed Samick NASCAR guitar to not only accompany music in her student teaching placement, but
as visual art for the lesson she developed about The Pony Express!
Katie's creativity abounds. Understandably nervous before playing guitar in a drama class of sixth graders- she recognized the universality of her performance anxiety and turned it into a valuable lesson for her students on finding creative courage. They supported her to do her best, and in this process, joined in and found extra value. She and her students recited and sang tongue twisters while she accompanied them on guitar. Guitars In The Classroom will soon be posting lesson shares from many gifted teachers under the "resources" section of our website. Please check with us next month to read Katie's journal entry, and more. |
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Get to Know us! |
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Meet David Wilson, GITC-Atascadero, California
Dave has been training teachers with GITC in the Atascadero/Templeton area for the past 2 years. His background in outdoor education makes him a very special resource to classroom teachers. You know he loves the outdoors just from looking at this photo! The brave and eager souls in his class are playing music in the park to raise funds for their local GITC programs. Huge thanks and congratulations go to all of them for strumming their stuff!
From the left to the right in the photo are: Vicki Beurster, Laura Henderson, Tess Harback, Julie Jensen-Clark, Melinda Reaney, and Dave Wilson.
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GITC and John Lennon's Original Quarrymen
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In an effort to bring community members together to celebrate music and restore music making to our schools that have lost funding and cut music programs, Guitars in the Classroom presented an exciting series of Benefit Concerts. During October, John Lennon's birthday month, Guitars in the Classroom was graced with support from John Lennon's original Quarrymen, the band that gave birth to The Beatles.
The Quarrymen, the band who were on stage with John Lennon on Saturday July 6th, 1957 (the day John met Paul McCartney) - got back together in 1997 to celebrate the most momentous meeting in pop music history. On their first ever west coast tour, The Quarrymen performed a series of 3 concerts with Guitars in the Classroom.
These fun and educational concerts helped raise awareness about the work of Guitars in the classroom in Southern California and across the nation as they bring support local schools, teachers, and students with the gift of musical training and supplies. Concert goers re-lived history with John's chums, who performed original songs and shared stories and anecdotes from their fascinating lives in music.
Photograph by Chyna
Pictured above are Rod Davis (vocals, guitar), JB Fonfrias (bass), Colin Hanton (drums), Julian Comeau, Allan J. Comeau, Len Garry (vocals, guitar) Julian is 12 and attends Millikan Middle School. He is an avid singer and a recently committed guitar player.
Many thanks go out to our good friends who have made these benefits possible including Thom Wolke of Twin Cloud Management, Marsha and Howard Berkson, Robert Morgan Fisher of Writers Boot Camp, Bob Harlow and Dave Mason of The Walrus, 105.7, Chris Carter of KLOS 95.5 fm in Los Angeles, guitar magician Laurence Juber, Fred Walecki of Westwood Music, graphic artist David Levine, Keith Royer and Lin Aubuchon of KTYD, 99.5 fm, Michael Simmons and the L.A. Weekly, Ms. Orly Munzing of Strolling with the Heifers, Sandra Jordan, and Eric Ebel of NAMM, guitarist and producer Larry Mitchell, Cindy Blumkin of Art n' Soul Gallery in Encinitas, Yvonne Apodaca of Mission4Music, Danielle Arnold, and all of the GITC faculty and friends who are making these amazing concerts a reality.
This original artwork was designed for these benefit concerts by David Levine and only 20 exist. Each is signed by The Quarrymen, Rod Davis, Len Garry, Colin Hanton, and bassist, JB Fronfrias. The first 8 people to make a tax-deductible gift of $100 or higher will receive an autographed copy of this poster.
To learn more about The Quarrymen, please visit their website here: www.quarrymen.co.uk
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Interview with The Quarrymen & Jessica Baron
Listen to GITC's good friend, Chris Carter, DJ extraordinaire and host of the longest running Beatles radio show on KLOS FM interview The Quarrymen and Jessica Baron, GITC's founder and executive director.
This interview took place at the KLOS studio in L.A. on Sunday, October 19th this year, and it provides a rare peek into the world of skiffle music, and the development of "Fab Four" through the eyes of their friends and original bandmates, Rod Davis, Len Garry, and Colin Hanton- otherwise known as John Lennon's orginal Quarrymen.
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Dear Friends |
As you are probably aware, for many American children these days, music has declined from form of artistic expression into a passive consumer experience consisting of 99 cent downloads and electronic background noise for video games.
These students have few opportunities to experience and make live music. By comparison, please consider the role music played in your own upbringing as well as the value it holds for you now. Unless we make a change during this critical and hopeful time, our culture stands to lose its beautiful musical voice, and our most creative and sacred form of communication. Already, most children have already lost the songs that capture our cultural traditions and social history. But you can do something to change this.
Read On...
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The Music in Mesick
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Did you know that a fetus can hear sound vibrations between 16 and 20 weeks in utero?
Photo by Amy Martin
Meet Hope Hales with Guitars in the Classroom from Mesick, Michigan. With the help of Amy Martin from our new program in Mesick Michigan, She is helping students at school get involved with music. And at the same time getting her baby introduced to the wonders of guitar. The guitar is a Daisy Rock "Pixie".
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Summer NAMM 2008
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Hi, my name is Nick Sinutko and I work with Jessica at GITC
headquarters as her assistant, manager of shipping & receiving, and editor
in chief of the newsletter. She has provided me with the opportunity to
introduce myself and talk a bit about my trip to Summer NAMM in Nashville,
Tennessee.
In September, I had the great honor of being Guitars in the
Classroom's representative at Summer NAMM 2008. For those who are unfamiliar
with NAMM's work, in addition to being one of our most gracious and consistent
supporters, they are host of the world's largest and most successful trade show
for the music products industry.
I would first of all like to thank the directors of NAMM,
Mary Luehrsen and Joe Lamond, for making me welcome as Guitars In The
Classroom's representative, and Tony De La Rosa from Samick Corporation and
Greg Bennett guitars for allowing me to speak about GITC and The Amigo Project
at BB King's Premier Nightclub in downtown Nashville.
Another very special thanks goes to Eric Ebel from NAMM for taking me under his
wing during my stay.
The Friends of Making Music Gathering at Summer NAMM '08. I'm in the black tshirt standing to Cookie Monster's
right! That's Nancy Cardwell from the International Bluegrass Music
Association and Bluegrass in the Schools to my left. Hi, Nancy! We'll be reporting on the forthcoming collaboration and pilot program between GITC and Bluegrass in the Schools in a future issue!
While I was there, I had the distinct honor and privilege to
spend time with the legendary Mr. Hooper from Sesame Street,
or Bob McGrath (pictured above in front of Cookie Monster), both at the Friends of Making Music gathering, and the
Tennessee Music Educators Luncheon. Hearing Mr. McGrath tell stories from his
decades of music making with children on Sesame Street
was not only heartwarming, but also incredibly inspiring.
During the luncheon,
we heard stories about Mr. McGrath's profound career on Sesame
Street, and were treated to a sing-a-long session
led by Mr. McGrath himself. I can comfortably speak for everyone in saying that
it was truly magical. I very quickly learned that even the most dignified and
respected educators and officials can not help but drop their persona for just
a moment to get caught up in the music and participate in the spirit of the
moment. At that moment, I was reminded of what drew me to Guitars in the Classroom
as a volunteer, and what will keep me here to stay.
To learn more about Mr. McGrath's work of past and present, click here.
To learn about NAMM's Recreational Music Making Initiative, click here. To see GITC's involvement with RMM, click here.
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Thank you for your continued support and active involvement in GITC's mission of empowering educators, and inspiring children with the power of music.
Sincerely,
Nick Sinutko
Guitars In The Classroom
Would you like to contribute to the newsletter? General questions or comments? Please contact Nick Sinutko here.
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