Home Free and Sea Blues are now available through iTunes. I never had the funds to make an actual CD of those. I still have a few hard copy Daisy Face available but I'm out of River Songs altogether. That one is downloadable through iTunes as well however.
On iTunes you'll see there are two versions of the compilation CD kids for LIFE. One of them has an extra song on it called Somebody Cares and features kids from Maraetai Beach School on the track. kids for LIFE is a compilation of the hottest songs from all the albums except Daisy Face which was not recorded at the time I put that together. kids for LIFE is aimed at an international audience. It has songs which are relevant anywhere on the planet. Daisy Face is international too. Incidentally, I used a lot of vocal rhythms on Daisy Face and played vanilla bottle, pine cone, drift wood, plastic spoons, and tea cup as well.
River Songs, Island Dreams & Home Free are about New Zealand creatures and situations. They include a few lyrics in the Maori language. Home Free has been produced by quite a few schools now and Island Dreams had its premiere performance at Whangamata Area School in 2010. River Songs would be a great show for a school with a keen choir and choir teacher. It can be performed as a themed concert with a short skit between each song. You could costume the skit players and have the choir in a different coloured T-shirts and standing on tiers to suggest a snow-topped mountain. This makes it easy for a music team to produce on their own. Island Dreams on the other hand is full of opportunity to involve art, movement, and technology as there are many characters involved in the plot, birds and creatures, even a few humans. It follows the relocation of endangered species to islands that have been cleared of pests. There's a great song that the pests sing. If the school has some older kids who have a band it would be ideal to have them perform it.
I'm happy to consult with schools interested in a production and to advise on production ideas etc so don't hesitate to contact me for a chat. I also have a DVD of the premier performance of Home Free by Parawai School in Thames. With all their 350 + kids. It was tremendously successful. That DVD is available to anyone who'd like to see it with a mind to their own production.
I've written all these shows with the idea of involving as many kids as you can fit into the performance space you have. They focus more on music art and having great fun than on theatrics. They are not star vehicles for individuals although there is plenty of opportunity for a talented kid to shine. The scripts have a very natural feel as if the kids made them up themselves and I do this deliberately as I want them to be able to bring their own sense of play to the performances.
As an environmentalist/musician I believe strongly that creating memorable experiences around environmental thinking by means of music is a powerful strategy.
Here's a report that appeared in the NZ Environmental Education Newsletter about the Whangamata Area School production.
In term three of 2010, Whangamata Area School mounted a production of my musical Island Dreams. This NZ premiere production was the focus of a term of study for the entire junior school around sustainability, diversity, and guardianship. Real learning was achieved on many levels. Local DOC representative said Island Dreams had done more for conservation in the school in one week than is generally achieved in five years.
Throughout the term curriculum objectives were linked to conservation themes. Students role-played as DOC workers, threatened species and predators. They created 3-D models of island sanctuaries. They produced conservation posters and murals where the messages came from their own awakened understanding and experience.
HOD Drama specialist teacher, Angela Hodgkinson, said that key competencies such as managing self, using language, symbol, and text, relating to others, participating and contributing were fundamental to the great success of the show, and were demonstrated effectively in the polished final result.
Because the school is an area school the show gave the opportunity for older students to contribute as choreographers, costume designers, and with set building and staging as part of their NCEA studies. Principal Ross Preece believes Island Dreams was the best primary level production he's seen in his thirty years of teaching.
Production assistant and teacher, Laurie Webb, reported that the school was inundated with positive comments from parents, preschools, and the general community.
A DVD of the performance is available directly from the school (07 865 8557) and the recorded CD is available from my website www.enviromusic.co.nz as well as through any Ode Records outlet. The song lyrics and script are posted on the website along with those from my other shows, Home Free and River Songs. There are also many songs about fish and fishing and other issues of sustainability.
I can be contacted through the website or directly at annarugis@gmail.com or tel. (09) 536 4994
Anna Rugis