A Gift for You This Sunday

August 11, 2013 //

I think you will enjoy it, and the singer is gorgeous.

Would someone please tell the mayors and governors and legislators to stop laying off teachers of music and the other arts?

Categories Arts Education

26 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

H.A. Hurley says:

August 11, 2013 at 12:10 pm

Beautiful and amazing that humans can create such incredible music.
Thank you, Diane.

Reply
eliotpound says:

August 11, 2013 at 12:11 pm

Thank you, Diane, for this wonderful Sunday gift. As we continue to get our hands dirty fighting the “deformers,” it is quite nice to bathe in a bit of beauty, reminding us why we fight the good fight.

Reply
David M. Rackow says:

August 11, 2013 at 12:16 pm

Got my vote.

We keep telling our children to stay in school. And then we rip the very soul out of their education.

If the result is that too many of our children are failing, the cause is that too many of our adults are failing.

Reply
Jenee Gossard says:

August 11, 2013 at 12:21 pm

Absolutely beautiful! Thank you.

Reply
Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

August 11, 2013 at 12:42 pm

Check this out! THIS is important in a well-rounded, engaging curriculum. Curriculum must be culturally relevant and not just of the WHITE man’s world. Culture is important is learning. CCSS will not enhance the learning of one’s culture, in fact it will cause great harm. Please check out this Ho’ike or SHOWING of what was learned. WOW. Now the CCSSers have not a clue about this kind of “REAL” meaningful, purposeful learning, which opens doors of one’s history so that one can reach out and then move forward.

Reply
- David M. Rackow says:
  
  August 11, 2013 at 1:06 pm
  
  Yvonne, the video performance you sent was beautiful and moving. Thank you for sharing it.
  
  Music today is, more often than not, of a fabric woven of so many varied threads from European, African, Island, Asian, Hispanic and countless other “roots” it is, at times, almost impossible to trace a piece back to any single pure source.
  
  It is exciting to hear and see what this ‘musical melting pot’ produces to delight us all. The operatic piece sent was, to me, simply one example of how exquisite music can become…and it was just that. I don’t believe it was an attempt to exemplify Italian opera as some sort of ‘be all and end all’ to what defines excellence.
  
  We can all be proud of the arts all our cultures bring to the table without having to rail against any of them. We can and should be even prouder that we live in a time and place where all expressions of art can have their time and place.
  
  And we can and must make sure that our children’s education includes the beauty and the values of fine arts…in all their forms.
  Yvonne, the video performance you sent was beautiful and moving. Thank you for sharing it.
  
  Music today is, more often than not, of a fabric woven of so many varied threads from European, African, Island, Asian, Hispanic and countless other “roots” it is, at times, almost impossible to trace a piece back to any single pure source.
  
  It is exciting to hear and see what this ‘musical melting pot’ produces to delight us all. The operatic piece sent was, to me, simply one example of how exquisite music can become…and it was just that. I don’t believe it was an attempt to exemplify Italian opera as some sort of ‘be all and end all’ to what defines excellence.
  
  We can all be proud of the arts all our cultures bring to the table without having to rail against any of them. We can and should be even prouder that we live in a time and place where all expressions of art can have their time and place.
  
  And we can and must make sure that our children’s education includes the beauty and the values of fine arts…in all their forms.
  
  Reply
- Gina Goss says:
  
  August 11, 2013 at 1:20 pm
  
  I thoroughly enjoyed your link and look forward to presenting it
  to my class at the appropriate time this year.
  
  Reply
jean sanders says:

August 11, 2013 at 12:47 pm

I love this one; when I visit my sister in Sarasota or my sister in Downey CA their public TV cable plays this kind of music all night….. wish we could have that where I live instead of what is piped in

Reply
- dianerav says:
  
  August 11, 2013 at 2:05 pm
  
  Jean, there is lots of great music on YouTube. Like this one.
  
  Reply
Michael Paul Goldenberg says:

August 11, 2013 at 1:22 pm

One great aria deserves another – Maria Calla – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6bSrGbak1g

Reply
Michael Paul Goldenberg says:

August 11, 2013 at 1:23 pm

Callas

Reply
Michael Paul Goldenberg says:

August 11, 2013 at 1:38 pm

Can’t resist:

Renata Tebaldi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFypui1xKlk&list=PL712926519E30856A

And then a lot of others, some wonderful, some. . . less so. Just keep watching the above.

I’m a big Renee Fleming fan, myself.

Reply
Joanna Best says:

August 11, 2013 at 1:40 pm

We are all that girl from Gianni Schicchi, begging our “daddy” (DOE) to let us marry whom we love (commit to public schools without the weight of RttT, NCLB, CCSS).

If Puccini were still around, I’ll bet he could put our libretto/struggle to music!

Thank you.

So far in NC the arts are still secure in schools.

Reply
- Cosmic Tinkerer says:
  
  August 11, 2013 at 4:36 pm
  
  “If Puccini were still around, I’ll bet he could put our libretto/struggle to music!”
  
  I think Puccini already did that, Think of today’s politicians and corporations as Madame Butterfly’s attractive U.S. Naval officer Pinkterton, who innocents are hoping will come to rescue them “one fine day,” as promised. His true intentions were specious though, as he never really aspired to fulfill anyone’s needs but his own. He was also too self-centered and cowardly to ever directly admit the truth to those affected by his schemes.
  
  And the children, unknowingly, continue to wave American flags, as if his is the greatest nation on earth and cares about its offspring regardless of color or class.
  
  Such deception. Such real life tragedy. There has got to be an ending to this matter with better resolve than Butterfly’s. We must let our hidden hopes lead us to fruitful action. Un Bel Di Vedremo:
  
  Reply
schoolgal says:

August 11, 2013 at 1:40 pm

Beautiful! Brava!

Reply
Dottie says:

August 11, 2013 at 4:32 pm

Thank you for the Sunday gift. I have to share with you that I listened to it in the mountains of Italy near Prato. My best friend from my childhood lives here. I am visiting she and her family. It was a beautiful, sunny day. We went to Sienna to tour this morning and out for pizza this evening with her daughter and her family. I have been keeping up with all that is happening with education in the states. There seems to be a lot. Ciao!

Reply
C Goudey says:

August 11, 2013 at 6:47 pm

Thank you. “So shines a good deed in a weary world”

Reply
gailj2 says:

August 11, 2013 at 7:08 pm

Anna is fablous in Gianni Schicchi aria. Thanks. We are big opera fans and I guess so are you Diane. The ed reform saga someday will be a tragic opera.

Reply
Stern says:

August 11, 2013 at 9:03 pm

Thank heavens for music in education. Although I teach technology, I grew up in an extremely artistic family including musicians, artists, philosophers, and chemists, technologists and pharmacists. Amazing what well-rounded people can accomplish.

Reply
Robert Rendo says:

August 11, 2013 at 10:51 pm

What will happen if the arts is so devalued in public education as a result of this metrics-obsessed culture of the reform movement?

We will not have have people like Anna Netrebko so easily in our lives. . . . beautiful music will be a rarity, and people’s appreciation of it even more rare.

Our fight is so worth it.

Reply
Robert Rendo says:

August 11, 2013 at 11:00 pm

. .. if the arts ARE so devalued . . . .

Reply
Cosmic Tinkerer says:

August 12, 2013 at 1:06 am

How about dueling generations? 10 year old Jackie Evancho singing O Mio Babbino Caro:

Reply
Cosmic Tinkerer says:

August 12, 2013 at 1:26 am

Here’s another personal favorite of mine, Nessun Dorma from Turandot. I’m crazy about Pavarotti’s version, but Jackie Evancho knocked this one out of the park, too, when she was 11 years old. Gotta love her –and Puccini:

Reply
Duane Swacker says:

August 12, 2013 at 7:01 am

Well, since we’re talking music here:

Reply
- Duane Swacker says:
  
  August 12, 2013 at 7:05 am
  
  A little history from Wiki:
  
  “Wildwood Flower” is an American song, best known through performances and recordings by the Carter Family. It is a variant of the song “I’ll Twine ‘Mid the Ringlets”, written in 1860 by lyricist Maud Irving and composer Joseph Philbrick Webster.[1] An older parlor song from the early 1800s called “The Pale Amaranthus” is also thought to be the original source.[2] The original Carter Family first recorded the song in 1928 on the Victor label.
  Lyrics
  
  The lyrics from the 1860 song “I’ll Twine ‘Mid the Ringlets”, the basis of “Wildwood Flower”, have many variations, one of which follows.
  
  I will twine, I will mingle my raven black hair,
  With the roses so red and the lilies so fair,
  And the myrtle so bright with its emerald hue,
  The pale emanita and the hyssop so blue.
  
  I will dance, I will sing and my laugh shall be gay,
  I will charm every heart, in his crown I will sway,
  I woke from my dreaming, my idol was clay,
  All portions of loving had all flown away.
  
  But he taught me to love him and promised to love,
  And to cherish me over all others above,
  My poor heart is wondering no misery can tell,
  He left with no warning, no word of farewell.
  
  Well you told me you love me and called me your flower,
  That was blooming to cheer you through life’s dreary hour,
  I live to see him regret life’s dark hour,
  He’s gone and neglected this pale wildwood flower.
  
  Reply
Cosmic Tinkerer says:

August 12, 2013 at 8:16 am

Funny, Duane! I call those porch songs, because while I’m not really into country music, I have enjoyed them a lot in their milieu, such as when hanging out with real people singing them on the front porch in the back hills of West Virginia.

Here’s my favorite porch song, Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwoʻole:

Reply