Goss Homeschool Academy

  When my children were younger we began the tradition of attending a Seder dinner at a local church and it brought so much meaning to the tradition of the Jewish Feast and the celebration of our Savior, Jesus! A few years later I discovered an amazing video on YouTube from the creators of Super Book! In the video, 3 young adults share a Seder meal with a Messianic Jewish family. Click here for the video! This was the inspiration I needed to have our own Seder meal at home! I watched the video and bought each item needed for the meal (lamb shank bone, grape juice, charoset ingredients, parsley, horseradish, eggs, and matzah crackers.) We set up the computer at the table so we all could see the video and then we would participate with the family while enjoying the clips of the Hebrew Exodus and also the Last Supper of Jesus from the Superbook episodes. If you have young children, I highly recommend doing the food and follow along with the video. ( You can buy the Haggadah used in th...

I usually try to create a program for students to follow during a dress rehearsal - this month and week has been to crazy for me to put something together so I'm listening to the pieces that we will hear and mentioning some of my thoughts below. I hope to see you at the symphony! 1. Ellington's Harlem  - 15 minutes Instrumentation - like most of Ellington's brass section, the employment of specific mutes for the "tinny" sound make it really fun to keep an ear tuned to the specific timbre of a muted trumpet or trombone. At 3:27 listen for the pizzicato strings. 14:49 pay close attention to the percussion section! This is a super fun section of the piece! Rhythm - the drums highlight the swing rhythm of symphonic jazz Form - the way the piece is performed highlights various districts of Harlem: Commissioned to write the work for the NBC Symphony in 1950, during the period when Maestro Arturo Toscanini was conductor, Duke Ellington wrote “Harlem” on the Ile de France...