A Winter's Carol

Here is an utterly brilliant song by Tori Amos called "A Winter's Carol" from her incredible new album, Midwinter Graces. I am extremely proud of the kids for their quick work in making this video happen! Another feat performed by the new PS22 Chorus of 2010!

Here's an alternate version from the soundcheck at the IAVA Heroes Gala last night.

Thanks to Perez Hilton who tweeted about the kids' newest accomplishment!

Allie's Back!

The PS22 Chorus of 2010 got a surprise visit from one of last year's star soloists, Allie. And to give you an idea of the talent, I literally lent her my iPod with this song for about a half hour and she was ready to give the performance you see here on the first take. The girl is a marvel! And the song is "A Silent Night With You" from the brilliant new album by Tori Amos entitled Midwinter Graces.

Veterans Day

Last night, the PS22 Chorus of 2010 had a wonderful opportunity to give back to the veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The kids were invited by Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of IAVA, the country's oldest and largest association of its kind. It was a privilege and an honor to be invited to perform at such an important event honoring J.R. Martinez, Iraq War veteran/actor/speaker, and Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks, Music and Logo Group. The event was hosted by NBC Nightly News host Brian Williams who gave the kids a terrific introduction, as they went on to bring the audience to a wild eruption of cheers and tears!

Big thanks go to Ms. Laurie for that incredible video footage, as well as to Mrs. Rehak (who took the fantastic pics of the kids performing)and Ms. Brandner for all their help! Biggest thanks on this Veterans Day go to Paul and all the veterans who've given and sacrificed so much. Much love from the PS22 Chorus!

Enjoy some more pics below.

The PEMDAS Parrot

Back in April, Mrs. Johnson's son, Zach, had a school project for which he enlisted the aid of the PS22 Chorus of 2009. He wrote a song for his math class called "PEMDAS The Parrot" that he wanted set to music. Of course we were glad to help him out, and even got (then) fourth grader, Brielle, to join in on the fun! For the full version, click here.

UPDATE: Congrats to Zach and the chorus on earning YouTube honors for this vid!

PS22 Chorus is ICKY!

Check out this newly-posted video from the PBS show, Electric Company, featuring the PS22 Chorus of 2008! Then check out some more below.... (For behind the scenes footage from the shoot, click here.)

Silent E!


Sound Carnival -- "Short 'I'"


Sound Carnival -- "OU"


Sound Carnival -- "S"


Sound Carnival -- "TR"


Sound Carnival -- "Short 'E'"


Sound Carnival -- "IGHT"

A+(k)8

PS22 super-fan Ashton Kutcher strikes again with another PS22 Chorus tweet on his highly read Twitter page! This time he links to the video of our kids singing for Marcia Gay Harden! Big thanks to the man for his incredible support of our chorus program -- this is the 8th time he's linked to the videos of the 2010 crew, and the 17th time he's linked to the PS22 Chorus overall. SICK!

For more Ashton Kutcher PS22 Chorus tweets, start here.

Marcia Gay Harden Runs The Town!

On Monday, the PS22 Chorus of 2010 had the pleasure once again of singing for our dear friend (and Academy & Tony Award-winning actress), Marcia Gay Harden! Marcia, adding to her collection, was being given a Big Apple Award at N.Y.U.'s THIS IS TISCH! Gala at the Rose Theater in Manhattan. The kids sang a re-reworked version of "Run This Town" (by Jay-Z, Rihanna & Kanye West) for Marcia, and were perfectly in tune! Marcia was amazing, giving each child individual attention and making them all feel like the stars they are!

The event was helping to raise money for scholarships to the performing arts program at N.Y.U, as well as to honor some of their prestigious alumni, such as Marcia Gay Harden! Other honorees of the evening included Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Sheila Nevins, and Diana King. Knowing of our relationship with Marcia, producer Ken Davenport contacted me and asked me if the kids would be able to sing at the ceremony as a surprise for Marcia. Of course there was no way we would ever turn down an opportunity to give back to Marcia! (In 2006, she had the PS22 Chorus over to her house for Christmas!)

What we DIDN'T realize was that the ceremony would be a veritable Who's Who of show business! In the audience sat Samuel L. Jackson, Spike Lee, Alec Baldwin, Glenn Close, and many more! Even backstage, as the kids were gearing up for their performance, they got some love, adoration, and inspiration from 3rd Rock From The Sun actress, Kristen Johnson. How amazing for the kids to perform for such an illustrious array of talent! Needless to say, chorus member Ethan got in his fair share of celebrity sniffing. And from the looks of the pictures below, it seems like the PS22 Chorus kids are becoming quite the celebs themselves.... in EVERY WAY!

Big thanks to Ms. Lisa and Ms. Sassano for all the great video footage and pics you see here. And of course, big thanks to Marcia Gay Harden for making time for the kids on her special night.

Multi-Talented!

Chorus member & notorious Beyonce-sniffer Ethan designed this awesome new poster of the group! Great job, buddy!!

Trick or Tweet!

Thanks to our pal, Ashton Kutcher, who linked to the chorus's new Halloween video! Hope that he and everybody reading had a great holiday! (For more Ashton tweets, start here).

Cross Cultural Festival on WLIW

photo by Steven Churnin

WLIW (Channel 21 in NYC on Time Warner Cable) will be airing footage from the Cross Cultural Youth Festival that included the PS22 Chorus on October 27th. 10 minutes of footage from the event will be featured on the show, Out of Ireland. It airs at 11:30 AM on Sunday, November 1st, and 11:30 PM on Monday, November 2nd. Catch it if you can!

Happy Halloween!

A spooky rehearsal today, gave way to these 2 performance of the song, "The Headless Horseman," originally sung by Bing Crosby back in 1948! (Thanks Suz!) I knew the song from an old record I used to play as a kid. The chorus seemed to enjoy the tune quite a bit today as they learned then performed it... HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Take 1


Take 2

PS22 on FOX 5 in NY!

The PS22 Chorus was shown on Fox 5 News at 5 yesterday in their coverage of the Cross Cultural Youth Festival, and the video has now hit the internet, courtesy of Fox's website! (For our footage, visit this morning's post.)

Also, just got word that SILive.com posted a write-up on yesterday's event with a great picture of the chorus! I was told that it is expected to be featured in either tomorrow's or next Thursday's edition of the Staten Island Advance. So be on the look out. But for now, you can check out the article (with a great pic too!) here.

PS22 Chorus Crosses Borders!

Yesterday the PS22 Chorus of 2010 performed at the Cross Cultural Youth Festival we blogged about a few days ago. The event was absolutely amazing, as expected! The kids performed "Can You Hear Me" with the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland, led by the amazing duo of D'ahvionne and Kaitlynn! Then the kids performed an acoustic guitar version of "Run This Town" by Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Kanye West as an encore, led by Karinna and Alyssa! Here is some AMAZING video footage from the event.... (courtesy of Ms. Lisa, probably 2 of the nicest looking chorus videos ever-filmed!)

And the pics.... (courtesy of my dad, Mrs. Johnson, and Ms. Lisa.)

Ashton's Running PS22 All Over Town!

Thanks to our pal, Ashton Kutcher who yesterday gave the kids another shout out on his Twitter page, this time linking to "Run This Town!" For more of Ashton's PS22 tweets, start here!

Cross Cultural Youth Festival

On Tuesday, the PS22 Chorus of 2010 will be performing with the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland in a N.Y.C. D.O.E. sponsored event at the Armory Track & Field in Washington Heights. The chorus is going to perform the beautiful "Can You Hear Me " by Jim Papoulis with the CBOI, and do one of our own songs for an encore! You can find out more about the orchestra in the video below.

PS22 will be one of several groups performing with the extremely talented youth orchestra. You can see the fantastic line up of talent below, which includes the phenomenal ballrooming dancing project featured in the highly successful documentary, Mad Hot Ballroom! Also the Keltic Dreams Irish Dancers from PS59 in the Bronx who've made news recently for their amazing project will be showing their stuff! Check 'em out!

The performance will be webcast live and you can listen here starting at 10:00 AM going to 12:00 PM. The orchestra will also be performing at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center on October 29th. We wish them the best of luck, and of course are looking forward to making music with them at the Armory! Some more info for the CCYF below:

Armory Track & Field Center, Washington Heights, NY
Tuesday October 27th, 2009 @ 10am

“CCYF” – Cross-Cultural Youth Festival

The Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland (CBOI) will headline a New York City Cross-Cultural Youth Festival (CCYF) on October 27th from 10am to 12noon. The CBOI will perform with seven other school groups from around the city, to an audience of more than 2,500 New York City school children. This event is a community outreach effort, a CBOI “giveback”.

The purpose of this event is to promote peace, tolerance and unity among today's youth, all the while increasing awareness and stressing the importance of Arts and Culture programs within the public school system and encouraging youth participation.

The participating groups will represent the many genres of the world of Music and the Performing Arts, to include, but not limited to:

v Dance Theatre of Harlem
v Dancing Classrooms
v Harbor Conservatory for the Performing Arts
v Harlem School of the Arts
v Keltic Dreams
v P.S. 22 Staten Island
v The Wendy Hilliard Foundation

The festival provides local, performing arts groups the opportunity to perform with a full symphony orchestra of their peers. It encourages and affords students considering the performing arts access to talented dance, choral and instrumental performances. Performers and the audience alike will experience traditional Irish music and dance, hip-hop dancers, a Latin dance troupe, rhythmic gymnasts and numerous choral performances.

We're Going To Be Friends!

From last week's rehearsal, here is the great song "We're Going To Be Friends" by The White Stripes. It was also recorded by Jack Johnson for the Curious George soundtrack, and a long-time request from the principal! Mr. Eberle picks up the bass guitar on this one, and makes the song sound even better!

Come Sail Away on the River Styx!

The kids had another great rehearsal today, as evidenced by the video below! The song is the classic "Come Sail Away," by the awesome eighties band, Styx! The kids breathe new life into it, and show how much fun it is to be in the PS22 Chorus of 2010! (Though it seems that Mr. B may be in dire need of some piano lessons....)

UPDATE: The new video has already earned itself some YouTube honors, including the #42 Top Rated Music Video!

UPDATE 2: Perez Hilton just tweeted about our "beautiful new video" on his Twitter page! Thanks to Mr. P for his continued support!

UPDATE 3 (10/25/09): "Come Sail Away" also grabbed the attention of another PS22 Chorus buddy, Ashton Kutcher, this morning! (For more of Ashton's PS22 tweets start here.)

A New Electric Company Vid!

Above is a newly posted PBS Electric Company video featuring the PS22 Chorus of 2008!! For more Electric Company/PS22 Chorus footage & pics, click here!

12 Million!

Congratulations to the PS22 Chorus kids on reaching over 12,000,000 views on their internet videos!! Just wow.