OKM

Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Guess what, Yes, indeed, it's time for community connection right here on K one, the one you trust, and we're going to talk Okay music here today because by Golly Festival and especially for kids that's just coming around the corner.

Hi, Mary Lyann, Hey Tom, good morning.

Are you doing great? You brought friends?

I did.

I brought a very special board member who also happens to be my husband.

Well, how do you like? John?

Hi?

John, Nice to be here, Nice to have you back. What's going on?

John is on a rock star tour right now, going around town, going to Kuwanas and he's going to the Our Best Forum, and he's going to the Rotary meetings both noon and daybreak. He's going to Lions and Pilots clubs. So, if you have a group, whether it's a church group, an organized group, a nonprofit organization, that you would like John to come give a little presentation about the kids festival, especially for kids, or the big festival for OKAM Music.

But we would love to send John your way.

He'll pass out some brochures, he'll give you a really entertaining, funny history and speech, and he might even give away some free tickets.

Oh my goodness sake, tell them John, we're gonna have keep roller skates on. Keep up with you.

Yeah, all of the above. I'm I'm ready to talk moy noon or night.

Well, that's great, and of course you know the Oka Music Festival and especially for kids. The folks who've lived here in town know so much about it. But you know, as we all know, we've got so many new people that always move into town. This is due to them.

Yeah, it's amazing, you get the new people don't know a lot about the OKAM music. So we started this year to really fan out and go to all the organizations we can that would would give us an audience and we'll talk two to three minutes or two to three hours and be happy to spread the word. But It's really been a lot of fun.

John knows a lot about classical music, so he loves to go and talk, and then of course he can always bring rows about the kids, but he also knows about the kids' performances. The really exciting thing is we are for at least six of our events we are sold out, So if you want to come, we still have some story times, we still have some music experiences open. You really need to get on there and get your space. I do have some good news and some bad news.

So we do have spots for the tea that just opened up as a result of that.

So if you're interested in coming to the children's tea, that all kicks off May thirtieth. We'll kick off with our you Keyboard Orchestra? Are you Keyboard Orchestra, which we're so excited about at First Presbyterian Church that night, and then it goes all the way through June eighth. The bulk of it goes from May thirty through June sixth, and we have so much I'll.

Hold it up for Facebook. This is how much.

Oh these are how many twenty plus showcase events for children, and then we have three main stage concerts starting on Friday, June six going through Sunday June eighth for adults and families alike. And then we have let's see we have one, two, three, four or five six that we have ten more showcase events during the festival.

So and we're really excited. John, I don't know, I think.

You know this, but we have our own very Tom Davis, who's going to perform for us. So for the first debut, I'm very excited Tom Davis featuring the Suns of Beaches.

So, Tom, how do you describe your band?

Well? On you usual and it's unique. We do have that beach flavor, right, but we also have classically trained musicians, very nice on board. We have an international cast from Europe, in the United States and some of US Native Americans, and we put together some songs that you've known for years and a ton of our original works. So we're going to be presenting just a very wide spectrum of music and the influences from around the world.

So it's a very fun, upbeat vibe.

So people need to come out and after they get out, after they know after they get done with gardening or whatever that morning, they need to come out and just be ready to jam.

It's called Jimmy Buffett goes to college.

That will be excellent.

So you are on Saturday, June seventh and Ambler Hall at one pm.

And so we do ask people.

Even though the showcase events are free and all of the children's items are free except for the tea, we do ask that you sign.

Up because we have limited space.

Our venues only hold so many, so those who have signed up obviously get first come, first serve.

But we are so excited to have you. Thank you for coming.

You know, we're always happy to fill in in a pitch and we're just happy to be considered.

So no thank you.

So we invite everyone on the schedule is so large I won't read all of it. I've done that a couple of different times. But like I said, we have our keyboard orchestra for.

Kids kicking off, we have a tea.

We have the Dancing Eagles are coming back at Sooner Park during Shunfest to do our hoop dancing and every child will receive hoops. We have Boogu Bingo thanks to Bartoswel radio, so yay, and so we'll be doing that again.

Come by get your Bingo card. You'll get a free pizza for your family. We have a lot of prizes.

We'll make it easy this year and hopefully get in at least three or four rounds.

That night.

We have five story sessions where children will get to learn about a fun story that has to do something with Norway trolls, music and.

Five different stories.

I think it's going to be really fun all that week, starting on Monday, June second, and then going through I think we go through the third for that and so those are always super fun.

Every child will leave with a book and so you can't go wrong there.

We have two puppet shows this year which are going to be super fun. One of them, sadly is already sold out, but there are still two other spots open.

So get your reservation in there.

And then we have a Twinkle Big Star concert that will be Dlann Everett and her students will be performing vocal and piano.

I think that's going to be really nice. That's going to be at Ambler Hall on June third.

And then we end all of our sare with the Jamin with Trolls out at Unity Square. That's a really big, kind of fun dance fest, lots of games for kids and some nice snow.

Cones out there, so come out there. That again is free, and then we'll have the kids will.

Play one more recital for the Keyboard Orchestra on that Sunday, June eighth, so that kind.

Of concludes the chill to this portion of it.

And then our main stage we have John you want to tell them about that, since.

On the main stage we're gonna be a wool of rock on the June sixth and Grady Nichols is gonna kick us off, and then in smooth jazz and then Manhattan Chamber Players, which are kind of nationally renowned. We're really happy to have them. They're going to be our main event and play. We're really excited to have them.

Forward to that.

And then on Sunday at at the Refinery that we call it in Bartlesville, now we'll have Escher Quartet and they are again they are nationally ranked. We had them last year and they're pretty impressive.

So if you.

Can't I only make one event, I would go here at Asher Quartet for sure.

I have the Tulsa of the kids. Yeah, didn't they play up here at the you have with the Dallas Strings.

Yes, my goodness.

Sakes that those kids are predenomenal.

They've played, they have actually played, I guess for now that I've been here for a little over ten seasons.

I think they've played for at least eight running years.

Thought, but one year they've even played out of Unity Square and sort of deviated from their genre and learned all the scores to some big sort of roaring twenties music, which was really fun. So yeah, I mean they're they're extremely talented.

We love them.

They are amazing students who really practice very hard, play like adults. I mean, they're remarkable. So Karen Nape is their conductor is she also writes music. She's been in several movies, so we're excited to have her back.

She performs with.

Them as well with some of the other instructors. So they're very talented.

They really just kill me because they're so good, and I don't think they know how good they are. They just played like there's no tomorrow and then they said, well that's a nice that was phenomenal, you know.

And we're always so excited to have them, and of course Karen and we always tell them, oh my gosh, you're so good. And the thing that they get most excited about tom is not the recognition, not the praise.

They like the T shirts from.

The festival, so they would be Saturday to get their T shirts, so they'll get their T shirts again. But yeah, no, and then we cannot say enough about a sure quartet. I mean they are trained under is talk Perlman but they are that is talk Perlman of string quartets. And you know, those who have come and keep coming, this will be their third year to come back to us have just said they are pure. They are just phenomenal, amazing, just beautiful musicians.

Really sweet guys. They're super funny.

Last year they enjoyed hanging out at the bowling Alley, so we had to give them a hard time about that. But of course, oh, I mean that was already so yeah, so no, I mean, so they're super down to earth but just amazingly talented musicians, So we hope that everyone will come out. They can get tickets on okammusic dot org. They can call Rose or Katie or I at the box office nine one eight three three six nine nine zero zero, or they can come by and see us

Funny Showcase shows. Do we need to get an RSVP so we can make sure.

Yes, we need everyone.

Even though the showcase events and those start on at ten am on Friday, June six, at first Press, we have the Bartlesville Ringers. At eleven we have Trinity Recorder Consort. At one we have Wade Daniels. And then on Saturday at Ambler Hall we have an eleven am. MCP is going to give us four of their members to do a special quartet ensemble, and so we're excited about that.

And then again one o'clock the.

Rock Star Show starts with Cal Davis featuring the suns of Beaches, so we're super excited. Sunday, June eighth, we have the ok Youth Keyboard Orchestra, and then Sunday night before our big finale, we have Brent Geddens as Elvis. He'll be doing a little bit of Possibel and a little bit of Elvis's favorite hits and so Brent is beloved and people follow him all over the state when he does his Elvis gig.

So it's super fun.

But all of those events, while free, do need an RSVP because spacing is limited and those who reserve their spot are first come, first served.

Very good, Very good. Now I want to go back to the Keyboard Orchestra because from what I can understand, this might be the first in the nation.

We believe that it is the first year round.

Only that's all they do is keyboard. Okay, there are other ensembles I understand, try to emulate our great yeah that maybe do a camp or something in the summer, but that's all they do.

They don't have an actual ensemble.

We have over twenty kids that have committed for the entire year that do this keyboard ensemble for the orchestra that are amazing, and so most of these are piano students who have now expressed an interest in learning other instrumentation and have come together and they're playing on these fantastic Yamaha keyboards that basically allow you to play the sound of a cello, the sound of a bass, the sound of any string instrument, any bass instrument, and it's

They learn a lot.

These kids are all in their own right amazingly talented. But when you come and hear I think it really surprises people and blows them away. So we've had two concerts. We had last year's first camp and then we had a Christmas concert. This year we'll have two concerts at the festival and then we'll have another Christmas concert. So I think at a first Presbyterian John when you say we had every three hundred fifty people, yes.

It was nice.

It was very nice.

So and it was great. I mean, the kids did wonderful. Lisa has them play certainly orchestral pieces and then they also do some individual solos, so it's nice.

So yeah, so please come out join us.

My goodness sakes, I would almost like to be a fly on the wall in the office right because I know how busy this is going to get, and it already has been busy, because we already have so many full things for the kids.

Yeah, I mean the day that we launched on Kids, we had over eighteen hundred reservations for that day. It was the biggest one that we've had, you know, And it's sad for us that we haven't even gotten a Memorial Day. Schools not even out and we're already sold out or reserved. However, you want to say that for many of our reserved out for many of our events, and our ticket sales for the festival are going really well too, so you know, please get your tickets, make

We're going to have wine out there.

So I think it's going to be beautiful weather at knock On Wood permitting. We've got the fireworks, everything's ready to go. And I'm excited because I'm sitting here with my two co hosts for the MC of that night. John is going to co host it and you're going to co host it, Tom. So I think it's going to be a really nice night.

John's good to do the talking. I'm just gonna stand around smiling right now.

At our interns.

I'll start coming in next week, so we're very excited to have them back. That always is a huge relief and help. And so yeah, we're we're getting down to the wire. Our conference room is stacked with about one hundred boxes for kids Days and all of the things that they get, the books, the toys, the puppets, the instruments, you name it. It's insane, and so yeah, the days go by very fast at this point.

My goodness. I want to thank you both John Mary for being here with us today.

Thank you for your time.

We love having you on board. This is the way we kind of share with our community to let everybody know what's going on. And of course, with all the many years that the Okam's been going on too. This is just a great little marriage we have here with our two things.

We think Bartisol Radio, Yes, oh.

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