Karen Ellis Author and Publisher of Print and Online Media.

HISTORY

Orff Schulwerk

In 1963 I started to study the ukele and that's how I met my friend Joel Bernstein who was in the same class.

In 1965 and 1966 as a 10 year old at Oak Lane Day School my first Orff teacher was Mrs. Fannabell Kremins. Thanks to Fannabel I am the first person in the United States that graduated Level 3 Orff Certification that had been taught Orff Schulwerk as a child.

She had just received her training directly from Carl Orff and Gunild Keetman in the class of 1962 at the Royal Conservatory of Music, University of Toronto.
Fannabell gave me her 1963 Student Class Picture of Keetman and Orff.

During high school, Joel studied guitar with Tossi Aaron: Orff Teacher, Founder of Orff Schulwerk PAOSA chapter, Author, Publisher, and Folk singer. I hooked up with Tossi in 12th grade and took an Orff class with her for fun because I remembered loving it as a kid. .It was in her class at Abington Friends where she reintroduced me to Orff Schulwerk and that's when I first met John Broomall RingLeader on this site. Tossi was the one who turned me onto the Orff Schulwerk Teachers Certification Program.

I started my first 2 years of teacher training at the Royal Conservatory of Music, University of Toronto in 1970 and 1971, with Traude Schrattenecker, Doreen Hall, Mimi Samualson and completed my last year at Memphis State with Jos Wuytack in 1973.

Ms. Traude Schrattenecker was one of the original creators of the Schulwerk, she developed the movement approach with Orff and Keetman at the Orff Institute in Salzburg, Austria.
I met Traude in 1970 when I attended the University of Toronto Royal Conservatory of Music. She was was my dance teacher and friend, sadly Traude has now passed away.

Doreen Hall studied with Orff and brought the method to Canada and is responsible for implementing this technique throughout the Canadian School System.

Jos Wuytack at Memphis State University and recorder with Mimi Samuelson, through all 3 levels.

I used the Orff Schulwerk technique as a Music Therapist at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic, in 1976. At that time I worked with children 3 - 18 years old and their families. The Child Guidance Clinic was nationally renowned for a technique known as "Family Therapy". The father of Family Therapy Dr. Salvador Minuchin brought this technizue to the clinic.

MISSION STATEMENT

HONORING THE
UNKNOWN CULTURE MAKERS

Improving literacy through arts education and advocacy by providing collaborative and interdisciplinary resources for understanding world culture.

	I was involved with Allan Slutsky and the Funk Brothers and went to the Grammys because we won for Standing In The Shadows of Motown 2003. Don't miss Pics of the Movie Screening

I was proud to be part of the production of the movie "Standing In The Shadows of Motown" with my friends Allan Slutsky and the Funk Brothers After years of playing music as the studio band for Motown Records in virtual anonymity, The Funk Brothers received their long overdue acknowledgement as an integral part of rock and roll history.

We Won 2 Grammys  Feb. 23, 2003 for
Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance: " What's Going On" - Chaka Khan & The Funk Brothers, Best Compilation Soundtrack Albaum: Standing In the Shadows of Motown - Various Artists

• 2002 Best Non-Fiction Film National Society of Film Critics Awards
• 2002 Best Non-Fiction Film New York Film Critics Circle Awards
• 2002 Best Documentary: Broadcast Film Critics Association Critics' Choice Award Nominee

Allan Slutsky and Carla Benson both helped me out with the National Children's Folksong Repository where you CAN contribute folksongs and chants to the online archive and document more unknown culture makers.

I care about teaching children to read, language rights, and censorship.

Reading and Culture Making

Honoring the unknown culture maker must run in my family. 

My Uncle Dr. Leon Eisenberg influenced my work.

My cousin David Goldenberg  collected the earliest jazz ever recorded!!

And I helped uncover the origin of the word JAZZ
with American Book Award Winner Professer Dan Cassidy with research on Scholar Peter Tamony for How the Irish Invented Slang.
Subtitle: The Secret Language of the Crossroads - unknown culture makers. Crossroads Irish-American Festival 2006  March 1 - 11, 2006, San Francisco

In 1976-79 during my lunch hour when teaching at Ricardo Richards elementary school on St. Croix, U.S.V.I. I collected children's indigenous playground poetry then copyrighted the live sound field recording compilation in 1979 when John Hickerson was the director of the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress.

I also know Dr. Alan Jabbourwho helped me to integrate Folk Music, Folklore, Traditional Culture Instruction, and Technology into K-12 Education.

In the same tradition of honoring The Funk Brothers who were previously "unknown culture makers" I used Orff Schulwerk to recover the indigenous playground poetry from the children, who are also "unknown culture makers" to develop a Folksong Reading Module, a thematic reading curriculum for children who only spoke Creole and Spanish on the Island of St. Croix, U.S., Virgin Islands in 1976 to 1979.

MY WAY BETTER 1/2

Karen Ellis + Steve Arone with Star 1998	Karen, Steve & Mollie 1999
Newly Weds 7/20/02	5th Wedding Anniversary 7/19/07
	Barcelona.es
Just	"Do It"

Definition of Mistress: ECP CLIENTS

1. A woman who has power, authority, or ownership.
2. A female teacher or tutor.
   

WEBMISTRESS n.

The alias or role - of the person(s) responsible for the development and maintenance of one - or more web servers and/or some or all of the web pages at a web site. 

CYBRARIAN n.
A librarian who can maneuver through cyberspace with ease, plucking information from its farthest reaches. The term was coined, according to library legend, by Michel Bauwens, an entrepreneur and founding member of a Belgian think tank called the Fourth Wave, which considers the implications of the digital revolution.

WEBLIGORAPHY n.
A bibliography of World-Wide Web sites, usually appearing on line with hypertext links that let readers call the sites up quickly.

1996 Snapshot of Guavaberry Books

Notice "Only 0 days left until Year 2000" written above? Pointed out for old times sake. That clock clicked the days down one day at a time for a whole year.

 

QUOTES

 

Someone dares to cross a boundary. Someone dares to dream, achieving the impossible. And she dared to work in every way that she could to make her seemingly-insane dream a reality. Because of her willingness to risk ridicule for what to others may have seemed a bizarre obsession, she expanded our sense of human possibilities. And by daring to trumpet her achievements in a book, a website, a reading curricula she added even more to the horizon of humanity. Achieving the impossible is part of the process of culture making. Promoting that achievement and its meaning is equally vital. Self-promotion can sometimes be one of your most selfless acts. The more humans you can reach, the more humans you can empower. The more you can embed your message in the cultural fabric, the more likely you are to make a contribution that outlasts your brief appearance on this earth and gives its bounty to generations yet to come. ~ anon

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." - Mark Twain

"An understanding heart is everything in a teacher, and cannot be esteemed highly enough. One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feeling. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child." " Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist (1875-1961)
"You may have success in life, but then just think of it - what kind of life was it? What good was it - you've never done the thing you wanted to do in all your life. I always tell my students, go where your body and soul want to go. When you have the feeling, then stay with it, and don't let anyone throw you off." - Joseph Cambell

DE LONGES' PRAYER GOT AMEN. [ Another West Indian Proverb]
How true and wonderful:
All things, both good and evil, come to an end.

Where I'm not.