If you were passing by Bardascino Park at the corner of South 10th and Carpenter Streets on the morning of Sunday, June 9, you might have seen a peculiar sight: groups of singers practicing an a cappella arrangement of a Sheryl Crow song. While it’s not uncommon to see musicians performing at Bardascino Park, this event was a little different. Members of Noteworthy were teaching an a cappella musical arrangement to a variety of music enthusiasts from the community. This was the inaugural “A Cappella Music Morning,” a series of fun and interactive singing workshops that Noteworthy will run at Bardascino this summer.
Bardascino Park is named after Giuseppe Bardascino, a South Philly resident who founded the Italian Brass Band. The Friends of Bardascino Park organization continues to honor Mr. Bardascino’s legacy with regular performances in the “Music in the Park” concert series. Musicians will perform a variety of genres, including rock, folk, Latin, and even Irish music at concerts throughout the summer. Noteworthy is adding to the musical culture of Bardascino by holding regular workshops to teach a cappella to the community and sing with new people.
Executive Director Vince E. McNeil Jr helps out the sopranos.
After attending one of the Music in the Park concerts last year, Executive Director Vince E. McNeil Jr. wanted to work with Bardascino Park to increase Noteworthy’s outreach in the community. Along with events like Make Music Day, workshops provided a valuable opportunity for Noteworthy to contribute to the Philadelphia community. We receive publicity and reach new potential auditionees for the group as well as new audience members. Most members of Noteworthy come to rehearsal or practice to learn, review, and hone their mastery of the songs the group chooses to perform; however, with interactive community workshops like these, we even get the chance for our individual members to practice teaching music to the community, which often can help them master their own voice parts better. As we like to say in Noteworthy, “Practice makes permanent.” The community receives free music enrichment, events for people of all ages, and opportunities to learn about different styles of music. Furthermore, ongoing workshops allow us to form greater connections with.
Diligently running a hard section.
Noteworthy will hold “A Cappella Music Mornings” once every three weeks this summer on Sundays at 11:00am (dates below). Each workshop, current Notables will teach community members a new song from a different genre of music. People of all ages and musical skills are invited to participate. To start, our Executive Director Vince swiftly and efficiently assesses the vocal range of any participants who are unsure of their voice part and then assigns tables and Notable members to them and their cohort of individuals with backgrounds in choir singing to begin learning the song of the day. After about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes of learning and rehearsing, we bring the groups of sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses to practice together and go over any challenging sections. And at the end of the workshop, everyone comes together to sing the full song as a group for the rest of the guests at the park for the afternoon so they can hear what others have learned.
Although Sunday June 9 started off a bit drizzly and dreary, the sun rather fortuitously came out and shone over us as we appropriately taught “Soak Up the Sun” by Sheryl Crow to a group of community musicians and music fans. Workshop attendees had a range of musical experience—from classical musicians to people who sang in high school 40 years ago. I particularly enjoyed working on the alto part with our two newest Notables as of June 2024, Bo and Kelley, especially when I got to use the melodica, a small lightweight free-reed wind instrument keyboard, to give starting pitches. All of our workshop attendees were quite talented, and rather proficiently picked up the entire song in about 45 minutes.
Vince leading the whole group.
After we came back together and practiced the whole song once, we performed for a rather large audience, including some people who happened to be passing by. It was really thrilling to sing with strangers while kids played on the Bocce Ball court and the traffic whizzed by on 10th Street. Singing with other people makes me feel closer to them, even if we’ve never met before. Singing and making music with others is one of the best ways to make community. I feel truly lucky to have gotten to sing with community members in Bardascino Park.
Over the summer, we will teach a variety of music genres, including pop, R&B, musical theater, Latin, and rock. I look forward to the next workshop on Sunday, June 30th, 2024, where we will be singing a family friendly favorite that kids of all ages can enjoy, dance to, or even sing along with. I also want to personally thank the Friends of Bardascino Park for collaborating with us and allowing us to connect with their community of music lovers. I know this collaboration will be as fruitful for our current Notables as it will be for the attendees of the workshops. We hope you join us next time!
Notables and community members singing together <3