The second semester of Fun With Music will meet from January 9-May 15, every Friday from 10-11:30 am in the Cornerstone Room (Room 215) of Pender United Methodist Church at 12401 Alder Woods Drive Fairfax, VA 22033.
This program is for moms and dads with their children ages 0 to 5. A fee of $30 covers the cost of food and supplies.
Each week there is 30 minutes of singing, a snack and toys are brought out for the children to play. The parents are served a breakfast and have the opportunity to fellowship with each other.
For questions, email Jim & Roberta Pont by clicking here.
The tribute show of Billy Joel’s winning The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song took place on 19 November at Washington D.C.’s DAR Hall. The prize ‘’celebrates the work of an artist whose career reflects lifetime achievement in promoting song as a vehicle of musical expression and cultural understanding.
The styles in which these works are composed reflect myriad contemporary traditions like rock, jazz, country, pop, blues, folk, and gospel.’’
The first Gershwin Prize Honoree was Paul Simon and other recipients are Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Hal David, Burt Bacharach or Carole King.
. 1941 ~ Decca record #23210 was recorded. The title was Chica Chica Boom Chic by the lovely Carmen Miranda. She sang the song in the film, “That Night in Rio”.
. 1942 ~ Maurizio Pollini, Italian pianist
. 1949 ~ George ‘Funky’ Brown, Drummer with Kool and The Gang
. 1950 ~ Chris Stein, Guitarist with Blondie
. 1955 ~ A tune used in a “Studio One” production became the #1 song on the pop music charts this day. Joan Weber’s song, Let Me Go, Lover, rode the hit parade as the most popular record in the U.S. for four weeks straight. Before being aired on television, the song had only been heard on a limited basis. In fact, the title was even different. It used to be known as Let MeGo, Devil.
. 1972 ~ John Denver received a gold record for the album, “Aerie”, this day.
. 1979 ~ John Travolta probably remembers that the soundtrack LP of “Saturday Night Fever” reached $25 million in sales.
. 1984 ~ The group, The Police, planned a farewell concert for March 2 in Australia. After nine years together, band members decided to go their separate ways.
. 2000 ~ Mejla Hlavsa, a Czech rock performer and friend of President Vaclav Havel, died of cancer at the age of 49. He was a bass player and singer with the band Plastic People of the Universe. Hlavsa, whose group was banned in the 1970s, was imprisoned in 1976 for unauthorized performances, deemed political protests under the former communist regime. At the time, the band had been performing at private gatherings, including parties at Havel’s summer house in Hradecek, northern Bohemia. Now the country’s president, Havel was Czechoslovakia’s best known anti-communist dissident at the time. After the collapse of the communist regime in 1989, the band resumed public performances. Hlavsa also performed at the White House in September 1998, at a dinner organized by President Clinton during an official visit by the Czech president. One of Hlavsa’s influences, Lou Reed, also performed during Havel’s visit. Reed was a founding member of the rock group Velvet Underground, which helped inspire Havel’s leadership of the “Velvet Revolution” that brought democracy to the Czech Republic. Havel had called the musicians “two legends from our two nations who both, in one way or another, are bound with the ideal of freedom.”
