Foo Fest is almost a week away. Leading up to the event you can watch history in the making on the rear exterior wall of the Pell Chafee building in downtown Providence. AS220 has commissioned the largest Shepard Fairey mural in the world to be completed in time for the festival. Make a point to walk down Aborn Street — you may see Johann Bjurman, the Rhode Island muralist and fine artist in process. Limited edition prints are for sale.

We had so much fun last year. We’ll be back again playing, making fairy houses, listening to music and more at one of the coolest happenings this summer.  Are you going? I’d love to see you there. I have two 4-packs of ticket wrist-bands to give away this week. Each wrist-band allows one person entry into the festival on August 14th between 1 PM to 1AM.

Want to win?

Here’s how: Tell me your favorite beach and/or post-beach snack place in the comments below.

I will randomly select two winners from all submitted entries.Contest ends on Thursday, August 12, 2010 at Noon. Winner will be notified on Friday.

AS220’s FOO FEST is an all ages summer celebration of Rhode Island’s vibrant arts community with plenty of fun for families. Empire Street will be fenced off and transformed into a lively party with dancing, eating, interactive art installations, homemade games, and two dozen acts ranging from national headliners to up-and-coming local bands.

AS220’s FOO FEST 2010 Sponsors: BIG TIME Support From: Foo’s Official Media Partner – The Providence Phoenix, Rolling Rock, 95.5 WBRU, Providence the Creative Capital & Mayor David N. Cicilline. Major Support From: Bank of America, Bank RI, Citizens Bank, Kidoinfo. Significant Support From: Durkee Brown Viveiros & Werenfels Architects, Pinpoint Studio, MetLife, Pezzuco Construction Sokoloff & Associates.

I told you that I have four 4-packs of Foo Fest wrist bands to give away. It’s week #2 and I’m giving away another 4-pack this week. Each wrist-band allows one person entry into the festival on August 14th between 1 PM to 1AM. Want to win?

Here’s how: Tell me your child’s favorite playground in the comments below. I will randomly select one winner from all submitted entries. Contest ends on Friday, July 30, 2010 at Noon. Winner will be notified on Monday.

AS220’s FOO FEST is an all ages summer celebration of Rhode Island’s vibrant arts community with plenty of fun for families. Empire Street will be fenced off and transformed into a lively party with dancing, eating, interactive art installations, homemade games, and two dozen acts ranging from national headliners to up-and-coming local bands. (more…)

AS220’s FOO FEST is an all ages summer celebration of Rhode Island’s vibrant arts community with plenty of fun for families. Empire Street will be fenced off and transformed into a lively party with dancing, eating, interactive art installations, homemade games, and two dozen acts ranging from national headliners to up-and-coming local bands.

I have four 4-packs of Foo Fest wrist bands to give away. Each band allows one person entry into the festival on August 14th between 1 PM to 1AM.. I’m giving away one 4-pack this week. Want to win?

Here’s how: Tell me your child’s favorite musical band. I will randomly select one winner from all submitted entries. Email your answer along with your name and phone number to: contest (at) kidoinfo (dot) com and put “Foo Fest 2010” in the subject line.  Contest ends on Thursday, July 22, 2010 at Noon. Winner will be notified on Friday. (more…)

Amazing family entertainment. FirstWorks presents illusionist and juggler Michael Moschen at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Providence on Saturday, March 13, 7:30pm.

Experience the magic with your kids as Michael Moschen sends crystal balls, hoops and rings flying, floating and spinning in space! Winner of the MacArthur “Genius Grant”, Moschen has revolutionized an ancient circus art into a mesmerizing form of theatre that has dazzled audiences around the globe.

Details
Veterans Memorial Auditorium (website)
83 Park Street, Providence, RI 02903
Saturday, March 13, 7:30pm.
AGES: Recommended for ages 6 and up.
COST: Tickets: $18-$32*
*Includes $2 restoration fee
Available online at www.first-works.org or through the PPAC/VMA Box Office: 401-421-ARTS / 220 Weybosset Street

Kidoinfo Giveaway:
FirstWorks has provided Kidoinfo with a family four-pack of tickets to this performance! For your chance to win, simply check out the rules below and email your favorite color to contest (at) kidoinfo (dot) com by Noon EST, March, 10, 2010. 

Put Michael Moschen in the subject line. Winner will be notified on March 10, 2010. Prize tickets can be claimed at FirstWorks: 270 Westminster Street through 4pm on Friday, 3/12/10, or at will-call, night of show.

SAVE ON TICKETS WITH SPECIAL OFFERS FROM FIRSTWORKS: (more…)

Putumayo Kids is the children’s and educational division of Putumayo World Music, committed to introducing children to other cultures through music from around the world. Always on the lookout for new music to sample, here’s the latest from one of our favorite labels:  Two new Playground releases and a holiday collection. All Putumayo Kids CDs feature colorfully illustrated liner notes.

European Playground
Parents’ Choice “Recommended” and NAPPA Honors award winner

Take a fun-filled musical tour of Europe without packing a suitcase! This collection of songs takes families on a fun-filled cross genre musical tour around the continent. Features tracks by Sås & Kopp, Alex Schmeisser, Alain Le Lait and Herbie Treehead. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of European Playground will be donated to the European Federation for Street Children.

Picnic Playground
Parents’ Choice Gold Award winner

Pack the world in your picnic basket with Picnic Playground, a collection of delicious songs about food. Features tracks by Jay Mankita, Asheba, Jose Conde, Rhythm Child, Donikkl and Maggie G. A portion of proceeds from the sale of Picnic Playground will be donated to Vitamin Angels, providing essential nutritional supplements to children around the world.

A Family Christmas

If you celebrate Christmas and want a new twist on the classics, listen to songs  from Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Martin Sexton, Deana Carter and Leon Redbone.

Now, want to be one of two winners to receive Putumayo’s A Family Christmas CD ? Here’s how:
• Visit the Putumayo website, then email info(at)kidoinfo(dot)com  (with ‘Putumayo’ in the subject), and name another CD from Putumayo.
• One entry permitted per person; United States residents welcome to enter.
• Entry period closes at midnight EST, Tuesday, November 23, 2009.

Cirque Mechanics “Birdhouse Factory” performance illustrates how art and imagination can elevate us through hard times. FirstWorks believes in the transformative power of shared experiences in the arts – and with that offers our Kidoinfo readers a chance to win tickets to the show plus two special ticket offers in case you do not win the ticket giveaway!

The acclaimed theatrical circus company, Cirque Mechanics, headlines FirstWorks Festival 2009 on Saturday, November 14 at 8 P.M. at Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC). Art meets industry in Cirque Mechanics’ production, “Birdhouse Factory,” with a story and setting influenced by pivotal artistic works created during the height of the Great Depression. These include Diego Rivera’s “Detroit Industry” murals, Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 film “Modern Times” and cartoonist Rube Goldberg’s outrageous illustrations. Set in a magical factory animated by mechanical props and spectacular performers, the narrative of “Birdhouse Factory” resonates with the industrial and economic history of Providence to elevate this circus performance into the realm of high art—complete with rotating gears, trampoline walls and aerial hoops.
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Kidoinfo Giveaway: Win two tickets to see Hayes Greenfield perform in concert at the Ocean State Montessori School in East Providence on November 7, 2009. See details below.

Kids are never too young to be introduced to music—of all kinds. Music has the power to transform us—both kids and adults—change our moods, soothe us to sleep, get us to move and wake our consciousness. Hayes Greenfield has been making music for years as a saxophonist, recording artist, and composer, and he believes in this power of music.

Founder of Jazz-A-Ma-Tazz, an interactive music education program serving schools and community groups around the country, Greenfield recently produced “Music For A Green Planet.” This CD celebrates environmental stewardship in music and song, reminding us that the choices we make have long-term consequences for the planet.

Hayes Greenfield, called “the true Pied Piper of jazz” by Phillip Glass, will be in Providence for two performances on Saturday, November 7, playing  songs from his “Music For A Green Planet” CD. Families can groove to favorite folksongs with a jazzy twist while singing about saving the Earth in one way or another. The concert, which is open to the public, is also a benefit for the the Ocean State Montessori School in East Providence. In addition to music, there will be a room with environmentally safe products that kids at the Montessori school have made, sold, grown, created etc. Food samples will provided by Trader Joe’s, Munroe Dairy, and Whole Foods.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Hayes. Read the interview below:

Kidoinfo: Why did you start working with children?

Hayes: Because I love sharing the magic and joys of jazz with kids.  Plus, for the most part, jazz is not a popular music anymore, and one of my missions is to inspire as many people as I can with it and show them how they can play jazz for themselves.  One person once said to me that the kids that come to see my program see how they can make jazz their own.  Usually I ask in the beginning of a performance, What is jazz?  It is amazing how many kids say it’s “old-style music” or “music from back in the day.” Before they leave a performance, I ask again what jazz is and if it is alive and well, and they all say “Yes!”

Kidoinfo: How old were you when you started playing an instrument/making music?

Hayes: I started on the saxophone when I was 15 but knew that I wanted to be involved with improvising when I was 11 or 12. When I was in elementary school, an improvisational theater company did an assembly program at my school, where they asked for a topic from the audience and then improvised a whole theater piece. I knew right then that improvising was for me.

Kidoinfo: What is your favorite instrument?

Hayes: Sax, drums, and piano

Kidoinfo: What musician would like to play with or collaborate with in the future?

Hayes: Just excellent sensitive ones who know how to listen. I have a couple of projects that I am involved with now that I would like to see grow into bigger ones. One is a trio where we are playing with electronics as well. Extremely creative.

Kidoinfo: Any tips for parents on how they can teach their kids to love music of all kinds?

Hayes: Expose them to live music in all forms, especially music that is played with acoustic instruments. Extremely important! In today’s world, most of the music is electronically produced and kids don’t get any kind of personal experience hearing and seeing music that is played live on acoustic instruments. Listen to all kinds of music. Parents should sit and actively listen to music with their kids.

Concert Details:

Music for a Green Planet concert
Where: Ocean State Montessori School – 100 Grove Street, East Providence, RI
Saturday November 7, 2009. Two concerts at 1:00pm and 3:00pm
Please bring picnic blanket to sit on
Ages: All ages
Cost: $12.00 for adults over 16. $7.00 for kids. Cash and checks only at the door.
Reservations: 401-246-2439
Ages: All ages

Want to win tickets to the concert?

Email info@kidoinfo.com and tell me one of the songs from Hayes Greenfield’s CD, “Music For A Green Planet.” One winner will be randomly selected to win two tickets to attend the concert.

Deadline for entries: October 30, 2009

Call for Student Entries! Deadline is December 12, 2009.

The Rhode Island Center for the Book at Providence Public Library invites all Rhode Island students in grades 4 – 12 to enter the national Letters About Literature contest with a national prize of a $10,000 grant for their local school or community library, thanks to the contest’s national sponsor: Target.

To enter Letters About Literature (LAL), young readers write a personal letter to a favorite author, describing the impact of the author’s book on his or her life or explaining how the book helped them see an aspect of the world—large or small—through new eyes. The books can be from any genre—fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic. By encouraging personal reader response and reflective writing, LAL encourages meaningful reading and helps to create and celebrate successful writers.

Each year, LAL awards more than 150 state-level prizes.  Top Rhode Island entries will receive a gift certificate to a local book store and a $50 Target gift card.  Additionally, the program selects six national winners, each of whom will earn for their community or school library a $10,000 Letters About Literature Reading Promotion Grant.  Twelve national honorable mention winners will each earn for the community or school library of their choice a $1,000 grant.  This year’s deadline is December 12, 2009.

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In 1963, author/illustrator Maurice Sendak published his seventh children’s book, “Where the Wild Things Are”. The story of Young Max and his fantastical adventures on a mysterious island full of teeth gnashing, eye-rolling monsters—told more by pictures than words—won the 1964 Caldecott Medal and became one of the most loved and well-known books in children’s literature. It was one the first books my sons’ received when they were born and still remains one of our favorites today.

On October 16, Warner Brother will release the adaptation of “Wild Things” from director Spike Jonze and writer Dave Eggers. While many of us (including me) are looking forward to Max’s larger than life theatrical adventures amongst a passel of hairy, creatively-designed beasts from the Henson workshop, I think it’s worth reading the book first and watching the original animated adaptation from Sendak’s classic masterpiece.

The DVD of Where the Wild Things Are…And Five More stories by Maurice Sendak from Scholastic Storybook Treasures™ stays true to Sendak’s original book and illustration’s. My boys and I received a review copy of this DVD, recently updated to include a new read-along function plus an interview with the author, Maurice Sendak. We loved that it also included some of our other favorite Sendak tales; “Pierre,” “One Was Johnny,” “Alligators All Around,” “Chicken Soup with Rice,” and “In the Night Kitchen.”

Scholastic has provided Kidoinfo with three copies of this DVD to give away! Want to win a copy of the DVD, Where the Wild Things Are…And Five More stories by Maurice Sendak?

Here’s how:

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Kidoinfo announces today the first of several fall giveaways for tickets to local happenings (and a few other surprises).

FirstWorks Festival is back in Providence with a fabulous line-up of events and performances running from Sept. 24-Nov. 15, 2009.  One of the upcoming musical events include a collaboration of two of Rhode Island’s most original composers, Steve Jobe and Chris Turner. Jobe’s setting of song texts by poet Robert Graves are played on a sound-sculpture of exquisite glass bells; Turner has assembled a 30-member strong community-based ensemble to create a sonic landscape of expressive power.

Thanks to FirstWorks, Kidoinfo is offering four lucky readers two tickets each to see Steve Jobe and Chris Turner perform on Friday, October 9 or Saturday, October 10 at 8pm. Simply check out the rules below and email us to enter to win (by Noon EST, Friday, October 2, 2009.).
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