Songwriting & Storytelling
From a Principal:
Thank you for all the time and effort you put forth bringing “The Search For Flutterby” to life. Your efforts not only helped teach McKinley Elementary students about South American culture, you also brought them into the world of song writing and theater. Your efforts helped to join all members of the staff and student body in a joint effort to showcase our curriculum and talents to the McKinley parents and community. Writing original songs, to be included in an original musical, performed by your troupe, students and staff is an experience the children will never forget. This has been one of the few times in my career that parents have called and written personal notes of thanks for providing their children such a wonderful experience.
“The Search For Flutterby” was a theatrical hit!
Thank you for the professional manner in which you and your troupe interacted with the students, staff and parents. From the first moments the students met you, your good humor and musical talent drew them in. Thank you for taking on the challenge of writing songs about what appeared on the surface to be unrelated topics and weaving them into a cohesive play. Thanks also for coming to Appleton for an extra day, at no additional cost, to plan with us.
The success of the production is a testament to your skills. If I can ever be of assistance to you, please do not hesitate to use my name as a reference.
--- Katherine M. Crowley, Principal
Ken has conducted Musical Story residencies with university theater departments, professional theater companies, and public schools.
In this residency, songs are written as elements in a unifying story (either original or in the public domain) that students bring to life in a simplified musical-theater format.
Staff and students select a story ---— for example, a cultural folk-tale or fairy tale. Ken helps each grade identify a key aspect of the tale— ---
a plot moment, a character trait, etc. —to serve as the basis for their song.
When the songs have been written, an extra day is spent writing narrative (often in a rhyming format) that is delivered by student narrators in the final performance. Sometimes the art department cooperates by developing a set backdrop or masks for characters in the story!
A residency includes:
- Opening Concert on the morning the residency begins
- Six Songwriting Sessions per Day (40 minutes per session)
This schedule will typically yield 6 original songs during the residency. In a smaller school, each grade will meet 3 times (once per day) for songwriting. In larger schools, each grade may need to be divided into classes which will work “cooperatively” on the same song, each group meeting only once for a songwriting session.
- Final Concert on the evening of the last day (or in the following week), as students join Ken in performing their songs for their parents, families and community.
Awaken! --- an adaptation of the Aztec folk tale “The Lizard and the Sun”, was created in a residency with students at New Glarus Elementary in March, 2006. After recording the work with professional actors, singers and musicians, Ken recruited students from Frank Allis / Nuestro Mundo School in Madison to bring the work to life in a full-scale community production.
From a Music Teacher:
What an undertaking! I have been in many shows and directed a bit, as well, and I have to say, it was very well-rehearsed, but NOT - thank goodness - at the cost of enthusiasm, which is of ultimate importance in this program of music about the center of our universe, of all things!
The staging - in the round - was absolutely apt on many levels, and effective; after all these years I still felt the same thrill when the cast got close - heightened my awareness of what was going on.
The masks and costumes and sets - particularly the masks - were STUNNING; so much care put into details where they would be close to the audience and therefore MATTER. Wow.
Where sound is concerned... The band was RIGHT ON. As a musician and theater person, I have to say that they were always part of the action, which is as it should be. Normally a band is crumpled up behind a curtain or a wall or stuffed into a corner of the audience seating. Here they could be seen all the time, heard well, and yet they were never distracting. They were in perfect balance, really, with each other and with the cast.
All my students LOVED it, AND all my students PREFER LIVE performances to recorded ones.
I was speaking with some friends over the course of the week since the last showing of "Awaken!" and they said it first: Ken's songs are so FUN! My words: outrageously full of life. I am an elementary school music teacher, and I tend to STEER AWAY from children's music! I had found one of his videos at my school by accident and was a fan in ten minutes flat.
I hope to work with Ken in the future, as he seems to have a magical balance with the kids - between accountability and fun. It's humanity at its best, and I'm thrilled that my students were involved. This is true learning for everyone involved and MORE...
--- Amy Nelson, Music Teacher, Madison, WI
