Deadline for voting is November 7. All three of the Western Massachusetts schools have drawn votes in the thousands, but this is no time to relax. A high school in Alhambra, Cal., had 14,058 votes at last count!
Boland Elementary School teacher Diane Rodriguez hands out musical notes to Isaiah Dubois, left, during music class at the school on Tuesday. The school is one of three schools in Western Massachusetts that have entered videos in a nationwide contest to win money for their music programs.Thirty-five local munchkins in red, white and blue are belting out the National Anthem on the Internet these days – and they’re being seen from sea to shining sea.
The children are from Edward P. Boland Elementary School in Springfield. The video is their entry in a contest called “Glee Give a Note,” which asks people around the country to vote online to help struggling music programs in schools.
Three public schools in Western Massachusetts submitted videos and are in the running for $1 million in prize money. Besides Boland, the others are South Hadley High School and the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School in South Hadley.
Their videos can all be seen at www.GleeGiveaNote.com on the Internet. The Web site features schools all over the country, and shows how many votes each has received.
Deadline for voting is November 7. All three of the Western Massachusetts schools have drawn votes in the thousands, but this is no time to relax. A high school in Alhambra, Cal., had 14,058 votes at last count!
Supporters can vote once a day, and they don’t have to live in the school district. Faraway uncles, aunts and grandparents can vote, too.
A student on the South Hadley High video observes that the band’s ancient uniforms are “about to bust.” She tells the camera that the band won first place for best percussion and first place for best color guard at a recent competition – shabby uniforms and all.
“We love our music program, and we want you to love us, too,” said Brittany Vardakis, 17, the South Hadley High senior who made the video.
On the videotape made at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts, students and teachers say they need more space, more instruments, more sound equipment.
“Sometimes my keyboard is working,” teacher Sarah Armstrong of Performing Arts tells the camera, “and sometimes it’s not.”
Diane Rodriguez, music teacher at Boland Elementary, said she knew most of the entries would be from older kids, but that didn’t stop her. “I’m always fund-raising and scrambling to find extra money,” said Rodriguez.
“Our program benefits about 700 kids a week,” she said. “My yearly budget gives me $2 per student.”
Instruments are mostly percussion – maracas, drums, triangles. There’s one keyboard.
Rodriguez wants to keep entering her little choristers in music festivals, where they often prevail. She does it “so they can see for themselves, and the family and the public can see, that they can shine just as brightly as kids from wealthier communities.”
In April the children won a gold medal in a state-wide competition. “Here were my at-risk kids,” said Rodriguez, “excelling, and bringing tears to people’s eyes, and making beautiful music.”
Rodriguez made the video for the contest herself. The red, white and blue costumes, which form an American flag, were hand-sewn by her principal at another school many years ago.
The contest’s rather clumsy name, “Glee Give a Note,” represents the three sponsors of the contest: Twentieth-Century Fox, the National Association for Music Education and Ryan Murphy, the creator of the television show “Glee.”
TV spots promoting the contest feature Jane Lynch, who plays the nemesis of the Glee Club in the Fox TV series.
