When the Chautauqua Lake Pops season ended after Labor Day weekend in 2019 none of us could possibly have foreseen the changes in our social lives that was about to descend upon us 6 months later.  As we now see light at the end of a very long tunnel we realize how much we have missed the Pops and its uplifting presence in our lives.  It's where the music met the water for 20 years in Bemus Point then in 2019 and where the music will, once again, meet the water in 2021.  Make it Mayville!  

"The message is support your community and quality of life for everyone because everyone benefits."

Dan Dalpra, Founder and CEO

Chautauqua Lake Pops

Pat Locke

Maestro Muse

 

 

"We are honoring the 2020 passes and tickets."

Dan Dalpra

Make It Mayville!

Pat Locke, Maestro Muse

 

Understand the Do's and Don'ts of the Two-Dose Coronavirus Vaccination Regimen

If you've already received your first dose of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine, congratulations and you're well on your way to being protected from the coronavirus.  To be fully immunized, it's critical to get the second vaccine.

Here are a few things to know about the second dose:

1. Your side effects may likely be stronger.  If you take one Tylendol before retiring for the evening you should wake up the next morning 90 percent improved and by midday feeling back to normal.  This is not an indication of something going wrong, but rather an indication that one has a vigorous immune response.  

There is no live virus in the vaccine, so you can't get COVID-19 from being vaccinated.  Older adults are less likely to experience vaccine reactions.  It is recommended to not  make any big plans for the day after your scheduled vaccine appointment. 

2.  You should avoid taking pain relievers before your vaccine.  Pain relievers taken ahead of the vaccine could dampen the effectiveness of the vaccine. It's OK to take Tylenol, Advil or Motrin after your vaccine to treat side effects such as pain, fever, chills or headache. 

3.  The timing between doses doesn't need to be exact.  The second dose of the Pfizer vaccine is supposed to be given 21 days after the first; for Moderna, the recommended interval between doses is 28 days.

4.  Your second dose should be from the same manufacturer as your first.  

5.  A rash at the injection site isn't a reason to skip your second dose.  

6.  You should temporarily avoid all other vaccines.  

7.  Full immunity is not immediate.  It takes two weeks after your second dose for your body to build full protection to the virus.  

8.  Continue to wear a mask.

Prior to the second dose, be well hydrated as I have read it can help with possible side effects you may feel later that day or for the next day or so.  My husband and I receive our second vaccinations on March 7.  

For the latest coronavirus news and advice go to AARP.org/coronavirus

This month marks the launch of Maestro Muse a year ago on March 9, 2020.  It has been my pleasure bringing you many fun and interesting Pops stories with photos and videos.  On March 24, 2020 I posted a story entitled Coronvirus (COVID-19).  I wrote (in part) the following:

"As I sit before my laptop on March 24, 2020 I contemplate the seriousness of this global virus and how it has affected our lives since spreading across the United States. We all hope this time of uncertainty passes quickly and we are able to move forward with renewed hope and strength.  Being able to, once again, give a hug or extend a hand of friendship will be a welcome gesture." 

A year has passed and we are now thankfully seeing vaccines rolled out across the United States to immunize the entire American population.  If you haven't received your first vaccine, put your name on several lists for a call back.  After your first dose you will be given a return date for the important follow-up second vaccination.  

Be Safe.

Pat Locke

Maestro Muse

Toto and Dorothy

When Judy Garland went over the rainbow as Dorothy Gale in the classic 1939 musical The Wizard of Oz, she almost left without singing what was to become her signature number!

For an advance screening, MGM executives had removed Over the Rainbow because they felt it slowed down the film!

Associate producer Arthur Freed stepped in, telling studio head Louis B. Mayer, "The song stays or I go," to which Mayer replied:  "Let the boys have the damn song.  Put it back in the picture.  It can't hurt."  Talk about .. famous last words!

The Tin Man, The Scarecrow and the Lion

The Tin Man was in search of a heart, the Scarecrow was in search of a brain and the Cowardly Lion was in search of courage.  Dorothy, of course, wanted to go home.  

More than 75 years later, the film and the song by composer Harold Arlen and lyricist Edgar Yip Harburg are cultural touchstones.  In 2001, Over the Rainbow was voted the greatest song of the 20th Century in a joint survey by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Recording Industry Association of America.  

"It might not see obvious that a song performed by a young girl at the beginning of a fantasy movie would take on a life of its own,", said Walter Frisch, a professor of music whose new book, Arlen and Harburg's Over the Rainbow, traces the work's history.  One factor of the song's appeal that Frisch cites is the universality of a childhood desire to get away or escape. "The song's mix of hope and anxiety has allowed people to read into it their own concerns," he said noting that the lyrics are general enough that one would not know the singer was standing in a farmyard with her dog. 

Frisch defines Over the Rainbow as a classic "I want" song, delivered at the outset of a show or film to "express the desires that will motivate the protagonists's actions.  Freed wanted a ballad that would rival a popular film song of the time, Someday My Prince Will Come from Walt Disney's 1937 animated hit Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

"When I tell people that I'm working on Harold Arlen's music, they sort of stare at me blankly, not recognizing his name," Frisch said.  "But when I mention Over the Rainbow  and Stormy Weather, they say, 'He did those?'"  Frisch believes that the composer's name should be well known as his contemporaries .. George Gershwin or Irving Berlin.

Arlen's music covers a wide range of styles, from jazz-inspired tunes to light-hearted patter.  As they collaborated, Harburg would generally suggest an idea or title connected with the plot, Arlen would compose the music and then Harburg would write the lyrics.  Musical inspiration often struck at odd moments.  On his way to Grauman's Chinese Theatre with his wife, Arlen asked her to stop the car as they passed Schwab's drugstore on Sunset Boulevard.  In a burst of creativity, he jotted down the tune for Over the Rainbow on the music paper that he invariably carried with him.  

An Arlen trademark is to begin a song with an octave leap, as in the opening syllables' Some-WHERE.  The section, Someday I'll wish upon a star was meant to imitate a child's piano exercise, Arlen claimed. Harburg recalled that it was the way Arlen whistled to call his dog.  When Harburg and Arlen were stuck on an ending for the song, Ira Gershwin stepped in to help.  When asked why he suggested ending the song with the question, Why, oh, why can't I, Gershwin later recalled, "Well, it was getting to be a long evening." 

The song that Garland later called "sacred" became her anthem.  When it was named song of the century, the headlines were usually along the lines of "Judy Garland's 'Over the Rainbow' is No. 1," with hardly a mention of the composer or lyricist.  The song followed and sometimes burdened her throughout the decades.  "It's like being a grandmother in pigtails," she once said. 

Garland would interpret Over the Rainbow differently by changing its "tempo, timbre, rhythm, phrasing, diction and choice of pitches," Frisch writes, noting that: "It grew with her and became the culminating moment of her concerts.  At her Carnegie Hall concert in 1961, everyone knew that she was going to sing it, but the audience would have to clamor for it."

Frisch's main area of research had been German music from the 1820s to the 1930s.  "People ask me, 'How do you get from Brahms to Harold Arlen?" he said.  "For me, what is special about both Brahms and Arlen is that they are deeply expressive, yet there is always a sense that the emotion is being controlled, which imparts yearning and longing."

He doubts that there is "one real authentic" version of Over the Rainbow.  "There are as many different versions as there are performers and contexts," he said.  Just this year in Manchester, England, Ariana Grande sang it as an encore at a benefit concert for the victims of a bombing at one of her earlier concerts. "Here the song conveyed a message of solidarity and reassurance," Frisch said.

Scores of famous singers have recorded versions of the song over its long and rich life.  Frisch ends his book by honoring its creators with an illusion to a scene near the conclusion of The Wizard of Oz:  "We should give credit to the men behind the curtain.  Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg are the real-life wizards."

Earlier in this story the term, cultural touchstone, is used to describe the composer and lyricist of Over the Rainbow.  A modern interpretation of 'cultural touchstone' is a cultural phenomenon that simply links generations in a society.   The song, Over the Rainbow clearly .. linked generations.  

Thank you to all who were involved in the making of The Wizard of Oz.  Particularly, its star, Miss Judy Garland.  Judy whose real name was Frances Ethel Gumm was born on June 10, 1922 in Grand Rapids, MN.  She left us too soon on June 22, 1969 at the age of 47.  She only stood 4 feet 11 1/2 inches though what a vocal powerhouse!  With a career spanning 45 years, she attained international stardom as an actress in both musical and dramatic roles.  Garland received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Tony Award.  She was the first woman to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, which she won for her 1961 live recording titled Judy at Carnegie Hall.  

Garland in 1945

Pat Locke

Maestro Muse 

 

Katherine McPhee and David Foster may want to channel their musical talents into lullabies. The couple, who wed in 2019, have welcomed a baby boy, McPhee's publicist confirmed Wednesday. McPhee and Foster knew each other for years after meeting in 2006 when Foster was a mentor on American Idol. McPhee was the runner-up on Season 5 to Taylor Hicks. She was also tapped to perform in Foster's 2008 David Foster & Friends concert special alongside Celine Dion, Michael Bublé, Josh Groban and Andrea Bocelli. This is the first child for McPhee and the first son for Foster.

Congratulations!

This iconic song, Over the Rainbow sung by Judy Garland in the film, The Wizard of Oz in 1939 has these oh-so-familiar lyrics that include, "once in a lullaby".  These 4 words of the song now truly have a special meaning for both Katherine and David Foster. 

When all the world is a hopeless jumble

And the raindrops tumble all around

Heaven opens a magic lane 

When all the clouds darken up the skyway

There's a rainbow highway to be found ..

Somewhere over the rainbow

Way up high,

There's a land that I heard of

Once in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow

Skies are blue,

And the dreams that you dare to dream

Really do come true. 

Someday I'll wish upon a star 

And wake up where the clouds are far

Behind me.

Where troubles melt like lemon drops

Away above the chimney tops

That's where you'll find me.

Somewhere over the rainbow

Bluebirds fly.

Birds fly over the rainbow.

Why then, oh why can't I?

If happy little bluebirds fly

Beyond the rainbow

Why oh why can't I?

Katherine McPhee Performing Over the Rainbow on American Idol

Pat Locke

Maestro Muse