Marilynn Seits: News & Events

In September, Marilynn began teaching a weekly Music & Movement class to children at the Gan Miriam School in the Riverdale Jewish Center. The children range in age from 3 to 5 and enjoy singing, dancing and playing rhythm instruments to a wide variety of songs.
During the Fall holidays, the children learned several new songs written especially for children by Lynn Nadel, a neighbor and friend of Marilynn's. The holiday songs included The Shofar is Blowing and Sitting in the Sukkah with you. Lynn has also written a song titled Hanukkah Latkes which will be performed at the annual Hanukkah party in December.

Lynn Nadel is a composition student of Marilynn's and has written several wonderful songs for children and adults. She recently recorded "Hopper" and "Happy Birthday Trees" in Marilynn's studio and plans to record several more in the coming months.

Marilynn began summer classes for her students. Some of them are spending time this summer learning how to do digital recording and editing in Garage Band while others are working on improv and jazz.

Chana Raphael has begun piano lessons after taking a year off. Her 5 yr. old brother Elie also started to take piano lessons.

Marilynn helped vocalist Tom E. Evans to record a CD of his favorite tunes from Broadway and old standards. Marilynn accompanied Tom on the piano and engineered the recording. The CD should be ready for release in August, 2011.

Marilynn began teaching Music Together classes at the Riverdale Jewish Center in May...these classes are part of Big Apple Music Together run by Pamela Beckerman.

Marilynn will be playing the organ for the 10 AM service at St. Peter's Episcopal in Port Chester every week beginning in May.

Lyla is a 7 year old with a fantastic musical ear. She started lessons in April and can already read music as well as play several songs by ear using chord progressions in one hand & melody in the other.

Six year old Ava and her twin 5 year old brothers Ryan & Shane also started piano lessons in April.

Marilynn continues to sub for the music teachers when needed at The Dalton School, K-3 in Manhattan...these days are always a lot of fun...

Marilynn has 3 new vocal students at the Riverdale "Y"...they are all progressing very nicely...

Marilynn has been teaching music weekly at the Silver Spoon Day Care Center in the Bronx...

Marilynn will begin teaching piano & voice to private students and group classes at the Westchester Music School in Mamaroneck, NY. She will be there every Wednesday for the coming year...

Doug Falkenburg has been taking jazz piano lessons from Marilynn during the summer months and this week his 8 year old son Presley will start --- Presley is very musical and has been playing the piano for a while now. He had to stop lessons as his teacher could no longer come to the area but since Presley and Marilynn live only a few blocks apart, travel will no longer be a problem.

Sean McAusland on bass and Dave Legadi on guitar/vocals are playing on Saturday nights now at Flat Rock Grille in Asheville, NC. I had the pleasure of listening to one of their sets and having a fine seafood dinner while I was in Asheville in late August.

My son Sean and I went to Newport, RI on Aug 6 for 2 glorious days of jazz presented on 3 stages at Fort Adams State Park. We heard The Chick Corea Band, Herbie Hancock's band, Arturo O'Farrell's Latin Jazz Orchestra and Chris Botti among others...

Neil Bianco has been taking jazz piano lessons from Marilynn all summer. He is learning how to play songs for the family by "ear" and how to put chords with familiar melodies so he can play the piano at family sing along gatherings. His goal is to be able to play a lot of Christmas songs by December and accompany his children and grandchildren while caroling...

There was a wonderful art installation of 60 pianos scattered around NYC titled "Play Me I'm Yours"...Marilynn and some friends went to Lincoln Center and down to Chelsea to play on several of the pianos and everyone had a great time doing it!

New young students:
Eight year old Osamede began voice and piano lessons with Marilynn last Fall and is progressing very nicely. Six year old Dahlia began piano lessons in January and is learning to play by ear as well as read music. And seven year old twins Annya and Ben began piano lessons a few weeks ago and their older brother Josh is studying clarinet, piano and voice...they are a very musical family.

New adult student: Kathy Kettles has been singing jazz and standards for some time now and began studying with Marilynn recently to learn new songs and improve her jazz improv skills.

Last Fall, Marilynn began subbing for music teachers at The Dalton School in Manhattan, grades K through 3 and recently accompanied the Chorus for their February choral concert.

New students of Marilynn's at the Riverdale "Y" School of Music include Barbara Mann on piano and Katie Kilcommons, voice and piano.

In late January, Marilynn joined the faculty of Piano Schools of NYC, owned and operated by Vera Anselmo, a classically trained pianist and teacher from Moscow. Her piano school is quite large and covers the 5 boroughs of New York as well as Westchester County. So far, Marilynn has private students in Bedford Hills and the Bronx and also teaches group piano lessons at the Pablo Neruda Academy.

Marilynn travels to Scarsdale & Eastchester each week to give piano and music lessons to three families.
• Nine year old Eliot began on recorder and piano last year and is now studying saxophone at school. Marilynn is helping him with both sax and piano -- part of Marilynn's music education in college was learning to play sax, flute, clarinet, percussion, violin, organ and harpsichord as well as piano & voice.
• Six year old Lilah, Eliot's sister, loves to sing and dance to all kinds of music and is playing the piano as well. She'll be starting on recorder soon.
• Six year old Julia and her four year old brother Greg are both studying piano, singing lots of songs and using egg shakers, rhythm sticks & drums to learn about rhythm & time in music. Greg likes to make up songs about sharks, his favorite animals.
• Six year old Adrianna is studying piano and also loves to sing and dance. She's very creative and makes up her own songs to dance to. Her four year old bother Jason usually joins his sister for the last 10 minutes of the class and plays a drum while she's dancing. Many of these private lessons become family events as music brings the whole family together.

Marilynn began teaching music to 3 classes at the ITI Children's Center in Mamaroneck, NY: Pre-K, Toddlers and Babies. Marilynn will be teaching two 30 minutes classes each month using a keyboard, rhythm instruments, movement & dancing and singing lots of songs! The baby class is very interesting as these are small babies who can't yet walk or crawl -- but they do move their bodies and shake the musical shakers very energetically to music done in the class...It's so good that they can start their musical education at such a young age!

Marilynn has two new students who come weekly to her home studio to study voice and music ---

Nine year old Osamede has a wonderful voice and loves singing Broadway songs and sings in her Church choir with her parents...

Fourteen year old Jovon has a lovely voice and a lot of musical talent...she is prepping for her auditions to get into one of NYC's special schools for the arts including La Guardia HS...