TI:ME is delighted to announce that Barton Hills Choir director Gavin Tabone, (Barton Hills Elementary School, Austin, Texas) will deliver our keynote address at our annual TI:ME Pre-Conference Reception in the Lonestar Room on the Riverwalk at the San Antonio Convention Center, on Wednesday, February 13th.
The reception is held exclusively for registered attendees after full day of over 20 pre-conference training sessions at the Hyatt Regency San Antonio.
Following the keynote, TI:ME/TMEA Reception Keynote will present the 15thMike Kovins Teacher of the Year Award to Shawna Longo, Hopatcong Borough Schools (New Jersey).
Tabone will share how he uses technology to engage his elementary school singers in a robust choral program, exposing them to professional recording and performance opportunities, working with professional musicians in the studio setting. His choir releases recordings on CD and digital formats, and he engages them with video production of their performances. Over 200 videos are on their YouTube channel, which has over 2k subscribers, and the videos have been seen by hundreds of thousands of viewers and gone viral on social media.
Barton Hills Choir is comprised of 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students from the school and accompanied by professional musicians performing a repertoire that spans golden oldies from the Beatles, Elvis, David Bowie, Grateful Dead, Beach Boys and numbers from Broadway musicals like “Mary Poppins” to songs from more current bands like Wilco, Muse, The Flaming Lips, Foo Fighters, and Belle and Sebastian. They have performed at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in 2009 and 2011 and appeared at the festival on both weekends in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016.
They were joined by special guest Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian for their shows at the 2014 ACL Festival to perform his songs and honored to share the stage with Belle and Sebastian for several songs during their show. In 2016 local singing sensation Nakia performed with the choir on the Austin Kiddie Limits stage TI:ME/TMEA Reception Keynote.
The choir performed in concert with Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters in 2012 when he performed ‘The Wall’ at the Frank Erwin Center and were proud to share the stage with Charlie Sexton in 2016 for a David Bowie tribute concert at the Scottish Rite theatre and frequently playsgigs at Texas venues and events like South by Southwest. In November 2018, they traveled to Brooklyn, New York and performed at the Brooklyn Bowl venue with Sirius/XM Grateful Dead Hour radio host and musician, David Gans.
Pre-conference registration ends on February 5th. Register now at tmea.org and add on the TI:ME Pre-Conference when registering. Limited walk-up registrations available morning of event.
