The Orange Middle School Little Kids Rock Guitar Club
Little Kids Rock came to the Orange Middle School in September 2002 after Mr. Alan Christian, a middle school science teacher and guitar player, read about the organization in the Newark Star Ledger. Mr. Christian contacted David Wish, the founder and chief executive of Little Kids Rock, and volunteered to bring the program to the Orange School District. Mr. Wish agreed, and under Mr. Christian’s mentorship, the OMS Guitar Club was on its way.
Little Kids Rock is a nation-wide non-profit organization dedicated to providing students with musical education. It is sponsored by well known performers such as Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt, and Paul Simon. Students are provided with instruments at no charge, and receive musical instruction after school through the teaching mentors. They have the opportunity to compose and record their original compositions as they develop their skills and record CD’s and DVD’s of their own music.
In the past five years, more than 75 students have joined the OMS guitar club. In 2004 they made a DVD video at the request of Elvis Presley Enterprises of one of Elvis’ early songs titled That’s Alright Mama. It was shown at Graceland, Elvis’ home in Memphis, Tennessee during the summer of that year to an audience of more than 50,000 fans. In the summer of 2006, one of our members recorded an original song Your Entire Fault at the middle school, and this year, the entire club made a DVD of “Amazing Grace” at the new Orange High Recording studio.
If you want to see our students performing, log on to the Little Kids Rock web site here. On the left margin, click on “Kid Videos” and look at the list of songs. Click on the three above songs recorded at the Orange Middle School. You will see our very accomplished musicians playing, singing, and having a lot of fun.
We are hoping to have at least one more video on the site before the end of this school year.