SUNBURST BLOG

By Alex Stanton 18 Apr, 2024
Sign ups are officially open for our Summer Recitals! As a reminder, each teacher is assigned to one or two 45 minute sessions during the first two weeks of June. Students can sign up by using the link below, or let us know here and we can help get you signed up. A few more reminders about recitals: Participation is free but we also collect donations to our Scholarship Fund . You can add a donation to your check out, or we take cash at the door, thank you for your contributions! Each session is about 45 minutes, will feature 12–15 students and we expect between 40–60 people in attendance. Friends and family are welcome, if you’d like to bring more than 4 family members just please let us know so we can plan seating etc. If you can’t make it to your instructor’s sessions and would still like to perform let us know! We want to make sure everyone who wants to gets a chance. Adults are welcome to perform in the normal sessions with their instructor, or in the special BYOB adults only session! Not all instructors will be in attendance for the adult sessions, so please discuss with them so you know if they’ll be there. Normally scheduled lessons and programs are ongoing during some of the earlier recital times, so please be aware when coming and going during the recitals. We are here to help with any of your recital related inquiries (and all others of course), please let us know. We can’t wait for this year’s performances!!
By Alex Stanton 17 Apr, 2024
Our Sunburst Plays staff band doing a little warm up for 80's Night with a cover of Madonna's Like a Prayer! Don't miss the show on May 25th... Get tickets here
By Alex Stanton 15 Apr, 2024
It’s time for Spring Cleaning! Join Squirrel Hill Litter Patrol and Sunburst School of Music as we Clean Sweep our beautiful neighborhood! The official community event is on Sunday, April 21st, but you can gather a group to clean anytime between April 14th - 22nd! Be sure to snap a flick of your cleaning in action and send it to info@shuc.org or tag @squirrelhillurbancoalition on insta to be entered for a chance to win prizes from local businesses including a Sunburst gift card for free lessons!  Register here: http://forms.gle/QeyqmF67rayNoRBh6
By Alex Stanton 13 Mar, 2024
Mixed-Age Class Theme - Triangle
06 Dec, 2023
The first Quest Labs session with the Environmental Charter School was a success! Last month, we launched an intersession music production workshop with a cohort of ECS 8th graders. The Quest Labs program at ECS aims to provide students with opportunities to develop industry-level skills in their areas of interest and collaborate with individuals in their community who have experience working in those fields. Our dedicated instructors, Charlie Scott and Daniel Hayashi, are doing just that! They spent the first day guiding the group through the fundamental aspects of production, covering drums and beat-making, the creation and utilization of basic loops, and navigating SoundTrap—the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) that we used for the workshop. Even on the first day, this group showcased impressive creativity, leaving us eager to hear how their projects will evolve over the next few months. By the end, we plan to release a compilation of their projects, including original artwork! We hope that you’ll stay tuned for our next recap in the January Newsletter. In the meantime, check out the amazing photos that ECS graciously took for us!
Musicians Gift Guide
By Alex Stanton 05 Dec, 2023
The holidays are fast approaching and you’re trying to find the best gift for all of the amazing musicians in your family. There’s a lot of noise out there, but we at Sunburst are HEAR to help!
By Alex Stanton 01 Dec, 2023
Mixed-Age Class Theme - Bells
08 Nov, 2023
Halloween was a blast this year, and we couldn't have done it without you! We want to give a big shout-out to everyone who attended the Little Monsters Mash and Night of the Living Bands Halloween parties. We also can't forget those who fully embraced the Halloween spirit by wearing their costumes to lessons. There were so many fantastic costumes, and we were genuinely impressed by the creativity displayed this year. To wrap up this year's spooky season, we'd like to share our 2023 Halloween Album , allowing us to relive the fun once more before the winter holiday buzz begins!
By Alex Stanton 23 Oct, 2023
Sign ups are now open for Sunburst's 2023 Winter recitals! Our recitals will take place in 16 sessions over the course of two weekends in December. Sessions are about 45 minutes long and have 10–15 performers. Each teacher is assigned to 1–2 sessions. If the sessions assigned to your teacher don't work for you, get in touch with us here , you can still perform in another session or we may add sessions as needed. Students are welcome to perform anything they like, and can play solo, with their instructor, with a friend or family member, or to a backing track, anything goes! Talk to your instructor about how you'd like to perform. Friends and family members are welcome to attend, we ask students to try to keep it to no more than 4 additional guests. On Friday, December 8th from 7–9pm, we're hosting our Adults Only session! For these we just do one long session with as many performers as we have. We'll have a number of instructors on hand helping with sound, stage, etc. but not all of our instructors can be there. Adult students are also welcome to perform in any of the other sessions if they'd like to make sure their instructor is there to see or perform with them. The adult session is BYOB. Our recitals are free for students and guests but we also collect optional donation for the Sunburst Music Scholarship Fund , you can donate on site, or select the donation option when signing up.
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