Rise, Shine, Sing

Did you miss Dr. Brook's segment on Ontario Morning this morning? Not to worry! The CBC has posted today's show to their website, with the Rise, Shine, Sing feature on part 3, starting at 12:46! Click below to check it out! https://www.cbc.ca//l/1-112-ontario-morning-from-cbc-radio

The word is getting out! Rise, Shine, Sing! was recently featured in a Queens Gazette article! To read the full piece, click the link below. Dr. Julia Brook will also be speaking about Rise, Shine, Sing! on CBC’s Ontario Morning radio show Friday November 20th at 8:20 AM. You can tune in from Kingston at 107.5! We will also be posting a link to listen to the segment when it is released on the CBC website, so don’t worry if you can’t tune in tomorrow morning. https://www.queensu.ca//leveraging-creative-potential-duri

We're enjoying learning "Four Strong Winds" which was written by Canadian songwriter, Ian Tyson. Ian Tyson shares the story of this song on this video. Did you know that he wrote the song in 20 minutes? Share your favourite version of the song in the Comments! https://youtu.be/DJdvv7jB0Tc

Toi, toi, toi to three talented Rise, Shine, Sing! Alums: Santina, Charis, and Vanessa who are performing and participating in @BlueCanoePro online show Voulez-Zoom on November 21st at 8pm. For more information, visit their Facebook Page below!

Are you enjoying Kingston's summer in November? Let's enjoy the warmer weather with some summer treats and theatre! Did you know that they serve ice-cream at intermission at some English theatres and concert houses? In the spirit of going to see a show and having ice cream, we asked our RA's their favourite musical and ice-cream/gelato pairings. What's yours? Tell us below in the comments! Jessica: The Last 5 Years and Chocolate! Frank: Oliver and Vanilla! Nicole: The Book of... Mormon and Cookies and Cream! Megan: Wicked and Chocolate Peanut Butter! See more

We are so pleased to be welcoming Jessica Rosales to the Rise, Shine, Sing! research assistant team! Jessica is currently working towards her Bachelor of Music Theatre degree at Queen’s! Jessica will be joining Megan, Frank and Nicole, who you may recognize from our spring session! #riseshinesing #queensu #AIMT

Congrats to our research assistants who have all graduated from their undergraduate programs at Queen's University! All the best, Santina Hughes, Vanessa Romao, Remira Pryce, and Charis Foster! Thank you for singing and dancing with us this year!

Rise, Shine, Sing! returns on Monday for our third session where we'll be singing California Dreamin', I Believe in You, AND we'll start learning a new song, "Four Strong Winds"! #riseshinesing #queensu #aimt

For this weeks Friday Findings we have another archive find from Vanessa! This is a program from a 1983 Kingston Summer Theatre (KST) production of "Anne of Green Gables." KST was committed to producing Canadian works like "Anne of Green Gables" and usually included at least one every season. It was a semi-professional summer theatre company (the first Kingston summer theatre company in quite some time) established in 1979 and emphasized the use of local resources and talent, with the majority of their participants being local to Kingston! #KingstonSummerTheatre #FridayFindings #AnneofGreenGables #CanadianTheatre

#BeautyinMotion This is a video from Stagebridge, A Senior Performing Arts Institute in California, the US's oldest and most renowned theatre company of older adults. They offer classes for adults over 50 of all experience levels for singing, dancing, storytelling, improv, and more, and also has an intergenerational storytelling program called Storybridge! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTN1Las03VA

On Tuesday, Colleen, Julia, & Darrell will be speaking about Rise, Shine, Sing! at the Community Music Commission of the International Society for Music Education. Help us wish them luck with their presentation!

Happy Friday Findings! This week's article by Alice Saville explores possible new theatre settings that would maintain social distancing while also continuing to push the boundaries of creativity. "What Could Socially Distanced Theatre Look Like?" by Alice Saville, Exeunt Magazine. http://exeuntmagazine.com//socially-distanced-theatre-lo/

Amplified Opera are shaking up the opera world through shows that invite conversation and challenge the status quo! Founded by Marion Newman and Asitha Tennekoon, this company is making important strides in seeking equity and diversity for the art form. http://www.amplifiedopera.com #Opera #Diversity #Change

June is also Ontario's Seniors' Month. Here at Rise, Shine, Sing we believe that passion and enjoyment, not things like age, matters when it comes to music theatre and creativity! To commemorate that, we wanted to share a clip from Stephen Sondheim's musical "Follies" which has a variety of complex older female lead roles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twUK_vPp-tE... #OntarioSeniorsMonth

In honour of Canadian National Indigenous History Month we'd like to share some excellent Indigenous artistry. We are in awe at Nyla Innuksuk's artistry in this National Film Board of Canada short documentary "Breaths" about inuk singer-songwriter Susan Aglukark. https://www.nfb.ca/film/breaths/ #NationalIndigenousHistoryMonth #Indigenousartists

Are you missing local theatre? The Festival of Live Digital Art (FoldA) that normally takes place from June 10-13 at the Isabel Bader Centre will be taking place online this year! See https://www.folda.ca for more details! #FOLDA #kingstontheatre #digital

We're loving Jeanine De Bique's stunning performance of Cleopatra's aria from Handel's Giulio Cesare. #BlackLivesMatter #SingYourTruth

For this weeks Friday Findings, we'd like to share a June 2020 events calendar that one of our Undergrad Research Assistants, Charis Foster, has put together. It features various online performances, events, and channels, including many Canadian ones! https://www.riseshinesing.ca/calendar.html

#BlackLivesMatter https://youtu.be/1DiWTwC6Ek8

Our research team has developed a calendar of music, theatre, and dance events throughout the month of June. Check it out on our website to find some amazing performances!

Looking for an offline way to cool off with your family during these sunny hot days? Take a look at Inside the Orchestras website that has 4 great outdoor music/movement and water activities for all ages! https://insidetheorchestra.org//outdoor-music-activities-/

For this week's Friday Findings we have another at-home music activity for all ages! This activity is great to do with kids during story time and is a great way to combine music and literacy! More activities can be found here: https://creativemusiced.wordpress.com//music-sound-educat/

We recently passed the 2-month anniversary since our last in-person session, so here are a couple photos looking back on those earlier sessions!

Here's another piece of Kingston musical theatre history, from the Queen's Archive! Produced in 1949, The Golden Years was the first all-student attempt at a Canadian University to write and produce a full musical comedy! It was student written and produced - with a completely original book and score. The plot was a satire based on the student experience and was set in Kingston, and at Queens.

This week's Friday Findings is from Andrea Creech's article, "Community-Supported Music-Making as a Context for Positive and Creative Ageing." Memory and celebration of the past (including musical theatre) is an active goal of Rise, Shine, Sing!

This beautiful video from The National Ballet of Canada features some company dancers dancing in isolation. Their YouTube channel has many other videos of dancers and productions as well as some exercises! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTi9o3PZemY&feature=youtu.be

Happy Mother's Day! We hope you're able to connect with those mothers and mother figures in your life today, and a huge thank you from us to all those mothers out there

Happy Friday (Findings)! The article "Alzheimer's Disease and the Promise of Music and Culture as a Healing Process" advocates for using a 'person-centred' approach for the care of peoples with Alzheimer's disease. This approach involves using multiple disciplines (including music and movement) to improve quality of life. Here's a highlight quote: "The role of music is much broader than that provided in specific therapeutic interactions. This brings up the importance of considering the whole person in the context of his or her family and community, and the role of culture in music's role to modify the experience of dementia" (192) Article: "Alzheimer's Disease and the Promise of Music and Culture as a Healing Process" by Kenneth Brummel-Smith 2008. From The Oxford Handbook of Medical Ethnomusicology, ed. Benjamin Koen et al., 185-200.

Here's another at-home music activity for all ages that can be done technology free! This is a list of 5 different instruments you could make with materials mostly found around your home. List is from the following article written by Music Educators: https://creativemusiced.wordpress.com//music-sound-educat/

Looking for something creative and free to do during self-isolation? Rise, Shine, Sing is still open to new participants of all ages and all abilities! During the sessions we do warm-ups, sing some songs, do some movement/dancing, and have coffee chats with all the participants! To sign up, go to riseshinesing.ca, then the "Join RSS!" tab. Contact this page or [email protected] with any questions!

A Friday Findings/reminder that Coalition Canada is hosting a 12-hour "Music Monday" event on Monday, May 4th starting at 9am. This is a great opportunity to virtually experience music and musicians from all across Canada! Here's some info on this years event, and some history of the event: - All information on the event can be found at https://coalitioncanada.ca/musicmonday/en/home-2020-online/ - Registration to watch is free of charge and only requires sign up (through the ...link) - There's a separate teacher sign-up for teachers who want to incorporate Music Monday as part of their lesson plans! - Music Mondays started in 2005 and "is one of the world's largest single events dedicated to raising awareness for music education." - This year's anthem is a new bilingual version of "Hymn to Freedom" by Oscar Peterson and Hariette Hamilton. See more

This artwork from artist Iconeo really exemplifies the theme that "music helps," something Rise, Shine, Sing definitely believes in as well! Whether it's actively creating music, singing along to a song on the radio, or just listening to it in the background, music has the power to help us in our lives.

Here's a throwback to our in-person sessions from early April! The first picture is from the physical warmup, during the 'sun salutation' portion, and the second is during our run through of "On the Street Where You Live." Even though they're not in person, Monday morning sessions are still going strong! To find out info about joining Monday morning sessions go to our website (riseshinesing.ca) and click the 'Join RSS' tab!

One activity from the 'sound maker' article (check out our last Friday Findings post for more info!) is Favourite Home Sounds. Try going through these prompts in your environment!

Happy Friday Findings! A group of music teachers have put together an article full of activity ideas for K-12 students that are able to be done offline, encourage creativity and connection, and most importantly are fun to do! Over the next weeks we'll be highlighting some of these activities, but check out the full article for more information and motivations: https://creativemusiced.wordpress.com//music-sound-educat/ Article: "Music (sound) Education at a Distance: A Case for the Offline During this Online Push, by Adelaide Beach, Katherine Fraser, Douglas Friesen, Mary Moynihan, Liz Prosser, and Matias Recharte

Historic Canada has created a project, "Canada During COVID-19: A Living Archive," as a way to record experiences and creations of Canadians during this time. By using their hashtags and tagging them in posts on your submissions, you can contribute to this grassroots archival effort!

Canadian project announcement! The Coalition for Music Education in Canada is hosting their yearly Music Monday celebration virtually this year on Monday, May 4th, starting at 9am (you could tune in right after Rise, Shine, Sing!) until 9pm. This year, they invite anyone to register online (https://coalitioncanada.ca/musi//getinvolved/registration/) to be a part of the virtual "Spotlight Celebration" performance of Oscar Peterson's "Hymn to Freedom." They ask that virtual choir video submissions be sent in by April 23 (all information can be found through the link). If you don't want to be a part of the virtual performance, consider tuning in to enjoy and support Canadian musicians!

As we end the school year, the team is welcoming some new Research Assistants! Megan McIntyre is a third year Concurrent Education student who is completing a Music major and French minor while taking Math on the side. She was with the project in its early stages and was very sad to have missed the start of Rise, Shine, Sing due to an exchange program, but is looking forward to returning to help the team navigate the uncharted territory of inclusive musical theatre during so...cial isolation. Frank Yang is a second year Concurrent Education student studying Music and Math. He is very excited to be working alongside such talented colleagues as a Research Assistant! Nicole Emmerton is a third year Concurrent Education student currently completing a medial in Psychology and Music. She is very excited to be a part of this amazing team and can't wait to get started with Rise, Shine, Sing!

Tomorrow morning at 9:30am is our second virtual Rise, Shine, Sing session! If you're interested in being a part of the project, even if you haven't joined before, you can sign up through our website: riseshinesing.ca. Once there, you can go to 'Join RSS!' to fill out a sign-up/consent form for the sessions. If you have any questions about what signing up would entail, feel free to contact the website or [email protected]. Hope to see you tomorrow morning!

This is a picture from a team virtual meeting to test out our new format! Starting tomorrow (April 6) at 9:30am Rise, Shine, Sing will happen virtually, but still with the amazing singing, movement, and creation led by Darrell and Amy!

Despite the project taking a pause for now, we still wanted to introduce our Session Leaders, Darrell Bryan and Amy Booth! Darrell Bryan is an Adjunct Lecturer at Queens University where he teaches choral music, conducting, voice, and music theatre. Outside of Queens he is Artistic Director of the Kingston Chamber Choir and a regular soloist throughout Ontario. Darrells area of research focuses on collaborative community composition and finding new ways to compose music at... a grass roots level. Darrell is excited to be part of Rise, Shine, Sing! to explore music, dance, and creativity in our community. Amy is a physiotherapist and dance educator in Kingston, sharing dance with individuals of any age and ability. She is thrilled to be a part of the Rise, Shine, Sing program to help bring the joy of music and movement to participants on a Monday morning!

In order to keep our participants and team safe, as well as to diminish the spread/flatten the curve of COVID-19, the Rise, Shine, Sing team has decided to postpone these sessions until further notice. We will continue to be posting on our social media, including some pictures from our sessions and we hope you all stay healthy and optimistic during these uncertain times!

Dear Rise-Shine-Singers/Dancers, In light of COVID-19 related precautions, our next Rise, Shine, Sing! session on Monday, March 16 is cancelled. This decision comes following the announcement that Queen's University is cancelling all classes for next week, as well as the government's recommendations vis-a-vis social distancing. We think following suit is prudent. We will be in touch next week with an update about future sessions as we play this quickly evolving situation by e...ar. Thanks to everyone for their participation thus far. We look forward to reuniting with you all soon! Stay up-to-date with announcements and other news here, or Instagram or via email. Yours, The Rise, Shine, Sing Team