Hot Times at Old Town

Appearing below are selections from the hard copy Hot Times. The objective is to highlight activities at the School and in the larger community, especially those featuring or of special interest to teachers and staff. Your suggestions are welcome. Enter a comment (under any item); it will come to me rather than automatically appearing.

U. of C. Folk Festival, be sorry you missed it!

The University of Chicago is home to Chicago’s unique folk festival, which just completed its 49th year. This celebrated weekend festival came from the same folk-conscious era that produced the Old Town School, and is similarly one-of-a-kind. If you missed it this year, put the Festival on your calendar for 2010 — it’s always at the end of January or the first week of February.

The University of Chicago Folk Festival began in 1960, initiated by UC students. While the first festival featured Joan Baez, she was an anomaly: from that year onward, the UCFF tradition has been to highlight lesser known performers. « Read more »

Filed under: Interesting outside the Old Town School by Skip | January 25, 2009 | Comments (0)

Jams! The School goes jam-crazy!

Jamming is perhaps the best way to strengthen your skills — and to have fun. You bring your instrument (whatever it is) and have the pleasure of informal, no-one-is-listening-carefully-because-they’re-having-too-much-fun music.

Opportunities for jamming occur daily at the school, with special jams on First Fridays. Not taking a class? That’s ok — this is a free community event.

The daily jams are “Second Half,” a long-time, Old Town School tradition. These mildly structured gatherings, led by teachers,
are scheduled before or after classes. Every day of the week you can join with other students to play songs, some from the School’s songbook and others brought in by a different teacher each week. A new feature, on Thursdays, is having two evening teacher-coordinated jams. The Second Half and jam schedule is below:

Mondays: 11:30 am, 9:30 pm (Lincoln and Armitage SH)
Tuesdays: 9:30 pm (Lincoln and Armitage SH)
Wednesdays: 12-2 pm jam (Lincoln), 7:30 pm (Lincoln and Armitage SH)
Thursdays: NEW! 7 pm and 8:30 jams
Fridays: 11:30 am (Lincoln SH)
Saturdays: 11:30 am (Lincoln SH), 12:30 am (Armitage SH)
Sundays:1:30 pm (Lincoln and Armitage SH) « Read more »

Filed under: Interesting at Old Town by Skip | January 24, 2009 | Comments (0)