The gift of song.

The children at UCCC gave their annual Gift of Song concert last week.  As is typical I was there with my camera, but this time I also brought along a audio recorder.  Throw the photos and a short music clip into Animoto and this is what comes out.

As usual Mr. Z lead the celebration and all the classes had a chance to show off their own vocal talents.  Mia was in quite a mood, posing for me when she saw my camera, but focusing hard most of the time to know when it was the Supernovas’ turn to perform.

To see all of the photos from the 2008 Gift of Song, please visit my SmugMug gallery.

Imagination Celebration

Last night was “Imagination Celebration,” a musical journey celebrating University City Children’s Center. It started with great food and drinks from around Missouri and then the audience was delighted with music from some amazing artists.

“Imagination is more important that knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.” -Albert Einstein

The journey was….

Opening Greetings – Steve Zwolak

John McGrosso (Arianna String Quartet) performed various works on violin.

Dan Rubright (guitar), his brother Ted Rubright (percussion) and Willem von Hombrecht (bass) (please help me find a link for Willem) played some great jazz & blues selections:
Danielle, Blue Junk, & Saving Missouri.
John even joined them for a stint.

A brief intermission was followed by Dan’s great performance of “Finklehopper Frog“

Lynn Rubright then took us into the world of storytelling.

Members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra performed Schubert String Quarter in d minor.
Jooyeon Kong, Violin
Lisa Chong, Violin
Jonathan Vinocour, Viola
Melissa Brooks, Cello

The evening ended with a Lullaby performed by Lydia Ruffin.

“The future belongs to those that believe in the beauty of their dreams.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

For all the photos from the event, please go to my Smugmug site.

UCCC Valentine Party

Mia’s classroom, the Shooting Stars, had a wonderful valentine’s Day Breakfast for the children and parents. There was good food, wonderful decorations and of course the children. I took my compact camera to grab a couple snapshots and Mia decided she needed to be the photographer for a while. Visit my Flickr page and see the photo set titled UCCC Valentine Party for all the photos.

Turkey for you, turkey for me

UCCC held their annual Thanksgiving Feast the Tuesday before turkey day. As usual the turn out was great, the staff was wonderful and the kids were a blast. Not to mention good food. I have added a few photos on my Flickr page with the tag Thanksgiving.

For the Love of Children

The Moonbeams room at UCCC was dedicated to Betty Thompson, a wonderful child advocate in University City and the entire state of Missouri. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the intimate ceremony and be able to photograph the happenings. To see a few more photos, look at photos tagged with “BettyThompson” on my flickr page.

Olivia vs Mr. Z.

A quick video I shot of Olivia at the U. City Library Million Minute Reading Celebration. Mr. Z was one of the guests of honor to be dunked as a reward for all of the reading that was done over the summer. UCCC participated in the reading so Mr. Z along with Mr. Jeff & Ms. Tango got to sit in the dunking booth.