Birthday Musings

Howdy Friends, Fans, Family,

It's my birthday! Another year gone!

One year ago today I was having the time of my life celebrating my successful kickstarter.com campaign to raise the money to record Songs From the Science Frontier, having a cake smashed in my face live online! (Enjoy the video below!)

It's been a great, busy year for me, as you can see here on the blog.

I thought today might be a good day to post a preview of coming attractions...

Feedback from the CD so far is overwhelmingly positive and I hope to do more this year to get word out about it! I've created a live show around the songs, which I'm promoting to schools right now, and I also plan to tour regionally with it during Spring Break. I'm planning more songwriting residencies here in Stillwater, and I'll be performing again at the USA Science Festival in Washington, D.C. in April. I've put together a fantastic lineup of nine Born to Do Science programs for the library; one a month from September to May and I'm really looking forward to that!

Evalyn's first day of school was Friday and she's very excited to finally be a fifth grader!!

Many of you are wishing me happy birthday on my facebook page, and I appreciate it very much! Thanks!

If you'd like to do me a birthday solid, please make sure you've "liked" each of these facebook pages. It's a great way to keep up to date on what's going on with my performances, recordings, and Born to Do Science:

Monty Harper, Children's Musician
Songs From the Science Frontier
Born to Do Science


And here's that cake in the face video again from one year ago. Enjoy!

Two Round Rooms

I did two programs this week, and they had something unusual in common - both were in round rooms! (So of course I performed "Roundy Round.")

On Tuesday I was at the Kaiser library in Tulsa. Lisa stayed home that day, so it was just me and Evalyn. Thanks to Emily Tichenor from the Tulsa system who took these photos!

Quintessential Evalyn!

The second round program was Thursday at the metro library in downtown OKC, for their Noon Tunes series. That was a fun one because I got to perform a few songs I don't normally. The audience was quite a mix of whoever wandered by, plus a few fans who came just to see me! Ironically the large group of Y kids who were plainly visible eating their lunches right outside the glass walls never came in to enjoy the show. Ah, well!

Many thanks to Hal Swinhart for sending in these photos from the show. He also set up a recording rig and captured the performance on CD. I may some of that recording with you once I've had a chance to hear it...

Here are a couple more photos that Lisa took...

Tulsa - 6/22/11

This morning I performed for Charles Page library in Sand Springs. We had a very outgoing group of kids and I had fun interacting with them! 

After these photos I'll tell you about my afternoon show at Connor's Cove...

The Purple Horde! All the kids in purple came from the same daycare. They were looking for their daycare logo on my purple shirt!

These kids made "Silly Song" their own, suggesting verse ideas with no prompting from me. Here I'm being chased by a wolf.

"Loose Tooth"

On our way to Connor's Cove we got curious about the name of the library where we'd just been and Evalyn asked me to look up Charles Page on my iPhone. He was a really great guy and a founder of Sand Springs. You should look him up too, to find out why he has a library and a street named after him.

Connor's Cove is the most awesomest place to perform for families in Oklahoma, I think, even if awesomest isn't a word. It'd be worth a drive to go there and see any performer. They even put a quote from me on their website!

Down in front of the audience for "Howdy Song."

Acrocanthosaur Roars

"This is the sun shining down on Earth..."

In line for the sales table.

My buddy Adam here is a teen volunteer for the Hardesty Library (where Connor's Cove is). He told me he first saw me about ten years ago at a library in Kansas. And I remember him because he had a foam guitar that he was playing along with me on. He was about three years old then! Very cool to see him again!!

Tahlequah - 6/21/11

Yesterday we were at Tahlequah. We've been to the library there many times before but this year the program had outgrown the program room, so it was my first time in the adjoining building, which is the old Carnegie library. The building is on the historical registry, so they are limited in what they can do to renovate. It's a huge rectangular room with plaster walls, high ceiling, wooden floors, and no curtains. Needless to say the acoustics are - well, a challenge. But the kids were great, and even though it was tough to hear, we all had a good time!

The second show - even more full-up than the first!

Watonga - 6/20/2011

The Watonga library is another of those that has had me back nearly every year I've been doing summer reading programs! We always look forward to seeing what they've done to decorate, and this year they did not disappoint. There was a huge igloo in the program room, made out of empty milk jugs!

Evalyn is counting - trying to guess how many jugs for a drawing for a stuffed penguin.

Never mind that penguins are South Pole and igloos are North Pole, this is still the coolest thing ever!

I stood between a rain forest and an igloo for this program - and you thought the weather was weird where you are today!

This little guy fell asleep and was dead to the world while other kids did the "Acrocanthosaurus" dance.

Coming up - programs in Talequah, Tulsa, Hollis and Altus this week. See the full schedule here: http://www.montyharper.com/Schedule.html

Ada - 6/16/11

We always love to visit Ada! This time Lisa had to stay home, so Evalyn and I went on our own. Well, we did bring Evalyn's stuffed buddy, Purple Monkey. He was given to her by the Ada librarian the year she was born, so she makes sure he gets to have a little homecoming every summer.

We had a great group and lots of fun with the performance as always!

Evalyn took the photos for me during the show!

AND Evalyn ran the sales table for me. She did a great job all by herself - her first time!

SE Oklahoma Trip

These past two days we've been in Southeastern Oklahoma. I did four library shows - Hugo, Valiant, Poteau, and Heavener.

Hugo is a circus city - three different circuses overwinter there. The library is decorated with a circus theme.

Evalyn with her new worm buddy.

The program room in Hugo was decked out with a world travel theme, including the giant colorful hot air balloon in the corner.

"Pop!"

Must've been something I said. ;-)

"Back off!"

At Valiant we had a small but fun group.

It's been years since we visited Poteau! Great to be back!

Evalyn on Poptropica.

Heavener has a new program room - a renovated stone building with a wooden ceiling that Evalyn says looks like an upside down boat.

We had a great audience in Heavener - the boys and girls club, which included quite a few older kids. They were super attentive and great singers!

Next up: Ada! See you soon!