Music videos made by a group of students from St. Anne’s, Sacred Heart and St. Patrick’s schools have earned high praise from a popular, Juno-winning Canadian indie band.
Burlington’s Walk Off The Earth – currently undertaking a North American tour and soon arriving in Sarnia as headliners of Bluewater Health Foundation’s Block Party on June 11 – have showered praise on the students, who created their own versions of some of the band’s popular standards, ‘ I’ll Be There’, ‘Gang of Rhythm’ and ‘O Canada’.
Under the tutelage of music teacher Dan Sonier and with the encouragement and assistance of St. Anne’s early childhood educator Vanessa Mina, the students – who range from kindergarteners to fifth, seventh and eighth graders to high school students – harnessed their considerable musical powers by rehearsing then performing the songs on stage, then sending them out to the wide world of social media, where they got thousands of clicks, likes and views.
“We were in the music room about bands and Canadian music, talking about concerts. And I said ‘you know who is coming to Sarnia soon? Walk Off The Earth is coming in June’,” Mina said. “And Dan said ‘that is amazing, we should do something to get their attention’.”
“Years ago I followed an elementary choir … PS 22 Chorus, and this music teacher in a New York-based elementary school in New York put together a fifth grade choir and just garnered a ton of response to the point where they’ve been singing at the Grammy’s and the Oscars. They cover pop-rock music and famous musicians and artists come to the school and collaborate with the kids,” Sonier added.
“So I’d been following them for a while to get some different ideas for what to do in music class, and I’d been working with the Vanessa, the ECE, for years and she’s always up for a project. Then it just kind of happened – we were talking about Walk Off The Earth and I was doing a project with some of my older students about Canadian music, then it just kind of escalated from there – we thought we’d cover a few songs and blast it on social media to hopefully get a response from them.
“It also gives kids a nice focus, when they’re learning a piece of music and there’s an end result, a performance or culminating task, which would be making the videos and sending them out,” he said.
The students jumped into the project with the fervent enthusiasm only children can muster, Sonier said.
“They were just so excited,” he said. “I’m all about learning something, performing then sharing it, so they’ve gotten used to doing projects. We do random phone calls to people; we sing for people on the street, we share what we learn because that’s what musicians do – instead of just learning it for the sake of learning it.
“So we hyped up the idea and told them maybe if (the videos) were good enough, the band might come to our school or might send us a message. That learning piece got the kids excited and made the kids a bit more accountable to make the best performance that they can, and we had a time restriction as well,” Sonier continued. “But they were right on board – my grade sevens and eights (from Sacred Heart) played ukuleles and rhythm instruments, they got to choose the instruments they wanted to use to accompany the track … and the kindergartens were just fantastic. It was an awesome, positive experience all round.”
Kindergartners from Lynsey Philipsen’s JK/SK class at St. Anne’s were particularly bullish about the project, Mina said.
“It was so much fun,” she said. “The kids just loved it and a lot of the parents say the kids were singing the songs non-stop at home. Sometimes they just randomly started singing it in class and we’d all get involved.
“They all think the band is so cool because we watched a lot of their videos, and they do some interesting things with different types of instruments,” Mina added with a laugh. “There’s one video that they completely lost it over – one (band member) does a jump and kicks two cymbals in the air, they couldn’t get enough of it, they just loved it.”
With the idea hatched in early April and the videos in the bag by mid-May, Mina began releasing one video per day in a week on a variety of social media sites – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube – and the views started piling up.
Parents and relatives instantly fell in love with the videos.
“My parents had happy tears,” said kindergartener Hailey O.
Relatives, friends shared the video until it views went into the thousands.
And then, Walk Off The Earth responded on Twitter, which absolutely floored students, teachers and parents, Mina said.
“They’ve actually already responded to two videos – the first one was a video from Sacred Heart where the students played their instruments. They replied ‘This is awesome’,” she said. “Then they quote tweeted the video of our little guys, and said ‘Our hearts are melting … great work kids at St. Anne School!’.”
“We’re hoping for more,” Mina continued. “They’re coming here on the 11th and our biggest dream of all is to be invited on stage, but even a personalized video message would be amazing. But honestly, the recognition we’ve already gotten from them has been perfect.”
Kindergarten participants in the videos also expressed a desire to meet the band or watch them perform in-person when they come to Sarnia. When asked what they would tell the band if they met them, the class offered a number of suggestions.
“You’re great at singing,” said James.
“We love your videos,” mentioned Olivia.
“My favorite video was the one where the guy kicks the two (cymbals),” Jeffery said. “That was awesome.”
For Sonier, regardless of what happens June 11, the students have learned some valuable lessons along the way.
“I think that, especially coming out of this crazy time where we couldn’t really do a lot of collaborative things like this, now that we can it’s even more exciting for these kids and their families getting back to this ‘normal’ routine of music-making,” he said. “The fact that we can move around and sing and share in this way is pretty fantastic.”
“Now Vanessa and I are looking at the lineup of musicians who are coming to the Imperial Theater over the next year, so this may be our little challenge as educators,” Sonier added. “It all makes the world feel so small too – you can post something out there and you realize it can reach many people around the world. It can also impact so many people, and that’s a great lesson for the kids as well.”
To see the videos made for Walk Off The Earth, visit Vanessa Mina’s YouTube page.