The Community Music and Arts Network and Angelfly Records announced they will hold a free family concert event at the Foothills Performing Arts Center on Sunday, April 29th, 2:00 – 3:30 pm, to celebrate the release of the 2012 Parents’ Choice Award Winning children’s CD, Unicorn Crossing. The CD is a fundraiser for all ages, all access community music programs serving geographically isolated and economically challenged families in the area.
The CD features music for kids of all ages and the young at heart. Universal themes, positive messages, and life lessons are interwoven throughout musically rich collection of animal songs, stories and parables. Most importantly, it’s music that both adults and children love to listen to, spanning from gospel, folk, country, pop, rock, classical, and Celtic. The concert will feature performances of all of the songs from the album with a few special guests and interactive family favorites.
Parents’ Choice President and Founder, Claire Green wrote, “the stories about love, imagination, differences, and the lyrics they inspired are fun, and the tunes are singable. But what comes shining through most of all is that this talented group really enjoys playing and singing together. And that, fellow listeners, is not a bad way to produce a CD.
In his review, Richard Fuller of WHRW, said “the CD is so refreshing with lyrics that transport me to another more caring, innocent and loving world. So unique in both tone and subject matter. A rare treat, indeed.”
Artist and Music Educator, Pam West, began working on the album in 2004 after returning from a summer performing in Europe. In 2006, she took a full time music teaching position and in 2007, her organization, The Community Music and Arts Network, received its first seed grant from the O’Connor Foundation. West was able to purchase recording equipment and enlist the help of her choral students, as well as family members and friends over the next several years during school breaks and vacations. After losing her public school position due to cut-backs and administration changes in 2011, she made the decision to open her own full time community music center and finished the album with the help of producer Fred Harris of Aleph & Co. in Delhi.
In addition to writing and composing all songs but Frank Loesser’s “The Inch Worm,” Pam is a versatile singer and multi-instrumentalist on the album, playing bassoon, flute, piano, guitar, mandolin, lap harp, penny whistle, organ, and synthesizer. The album also features the talents of Pam’s husband, singer-songwriter, Theodore Finkle (saxophone, harmonica, djembe/drums, vocals, accordian), guitar prodigy Matthew Curran, Henry Herman (Catskill Mountain Boys) on fiddle, Fred Harris, and numerous children’s chorus’ consisting of her daughters, Sage, Denali, and Akasha Finkle, her niece and newphew, Luca and Lane Rowe, her neighbor, Anthony Ortiz, and students from her 2008 elementary chorus.
Currently "Miss Pam," as she is known to local students, teaches early childhood Music Together® music classes at the Foothills Performing Arts Center, the Oneonta YMCA Preschool, Oneonta Nursery School, Kiddie Corner Preschool in Stamford, and she runs all ages after school and summer music programs at the Hobart Activity Center. She’s also the host of her own children’s radio show “Miss Pam’s Jamboree” Wednesday afternoons from 1:00 to 2:00 pm on WIOX 91.3 Roxbury (www.wioxradio.org), and plays bassoon with the Catskill Valley Wind Ensemble.
