Friends,

September is upon us and it’s time for me to get back to work! My weekday classes are slowly starting up and I will be at “full tilt” come October. Thanks to all of the schools who have found the funds in these difficult economic to have me back. I know that sometimes it’s not easy making the case for arts in preschool and early elementary classrooms. Teachers get it, of course, as do the children. School Boards and administrators are often forced to take their eyes off the prize, so to speak, in order to balance a budget. Glad I am not an administrator.

New YouTube Song: My husband Jay (also known as Jay Scorcese, Jay Spielberg, Jay Ford Coppola around the house) has put up a new video of me singing “I’m Sorry.”  I wrote the song to help introduce young ones to the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur and its focus on forgiveness, and it appears on my recording Songs In the Key of Chai: Oldish, newish, and mostly Jewish songs for all families!

I’m Sorry

This is really popular on youtube too!

The Month Song

As some of you know I am a member of the Children’s Music Network, a national organization devoted to making music for/with/because of young children.  Recently I joined the Board of Directors and have served as co-chair of the CMN Midwest Region with my buddy Brigid Finucane for several years. In fact, we just had our Fall Songswap gathering last Sunday, September 12th, where a lovely and lively group of teachers, musicians, singer/songwriter types showed up to share songs that work wonders at the beginning of the school year for the pre-K and elementary crowd. The CMN national conference is coming up in October (10/8/10-10/10/10) in Los Gatos, CA, amid the redwoods, and you’ll find information about the keynote speaker, workshops and related activities (like the celebrated songswaps) at our website: cmnonline.org. I look forward to the national gathering each year, reconnecting with friends and colleagues and sharing the joys, challenges, and successes of our work with young ones.

My family is good! Hope is senior at Oberlin College and Hannah is a senior at Walter Payton College Prep here in Chicago. Husband Jay is thrilled to be back at Whitney Young H.S. where he has taught English for almost 20 years, and our foster son Ali is happy, healthy, living and working in Chicago these days.

That’s about it for now. As always, I look forward to making music with you in year ahead. I am currently booking concerts for 2011, so give me a call and let’s see if I can come to YOUR neighborhood soon.

SSxo