Bringing Sass to Christmas!!!

It's December!!!  We've made it to that special time of year where shopping, cooking, spending time with family and friends, and listening to holiday music gets us all in the Christmas Spirit.  Well, The Sassy Songbirds are working overtime to spread that Holiday Cheer with their new show "A Sassy Holiday"... and some people have even referred to us as The Sassy Snowbirds!  We debuted our show last week, and have since performed 4 shows already and have about 5 more to go!  

Not only do we have all new Holiday songs (which you can hear on our new Holiday CD), but also we bought new, red, holiday dresses!!!  They are perfect for Christmas, and also perfect for Kristen's growing belly (she's currently 7 months pregnant)!!!  

Below you will find a video of our Christmas Show and don't forget if you would like to purchase one of our CDs, please don't hesitate to contact us and we will arrange to have it sent to you.  1 for $10 or 3 for $25!

Songs featured in our show include:
"Let it Snow!"

"Winter Wonderland"

"I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm"

"I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"

"The Christmas Song"

"White Christmas"

"Boogie Woogie Santa Claus"

"Rockin Around the Christmas Tree"

"Silver Bells"

Carols:  "Joy to the World", "Deck the Halls", "Silent Night", "Jingle Bells"

"Feliz Navidad"

"Hava Nagila"

and many more!!!!!!

Enjoy the video!

Veterans Day... Patriotic Songs!

Even though we are fully into our Christmas season (and will be posting festive pics and videos soon), we wanted to share a quick video of our Veterans Day programs!  We were lucky enough to perform three Patriotic programs in November and they were a hit!  We featured such songs as "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", "Alexander's Ragtime Band", "Yankee Doodle Dandee", "You're a Grand Old Flag", "Give My Regards to Broadway", and so many more.  And what is more American than Tap Dancing?  That's right, we pulled out the old tap shoes for THREE numbers in this program!  It was a blast!  We hope you enjoy a little sample of our show and tap dancing!!

Halloween

We hope everyone had a great Halloween.  Because we sure did!  Our shows were filled with dancing, costumes, witchcraft, and lots of snapping, clapping, and toe tapping.  We even adapted our name to "The SPOOKY Songbirds" just for the weekend!  One of our audience members brought her original vinyl of "Monster Mash" from 1962!

 We also had great feedback from our show at Grandview Palms Assisted Living where we performed for their Memory Care Unit.  Our new friend and contact from Grandview Palms, Lynne Talbert, had this to say about our performance:

 "Kristen - Many thanks to you and Alexis for the wonderful performance yesterday at Grandview Palms Assisted Living. The resident turn-out was amazing. So many comments after you left. There were tears while you were singing beautiful songs that brought memories to residents. Since I have worked there I have never seen such a response to entertainment we have had. Music is a perfect therapy for those with Alzheimer's. The "Sassy Songbirds" brought more happiness and joy to our residents than I can tell you - THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart."

This is why we love what we do!!!  We knew that was a special performance and thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it.  We appreciate Grandview Palms for having us there!  Thank you!

Below you will find a sample video from our Halloween shows over the weekend.  We hope you enjoy.

Getting Ready for the Busy Season!

What have The Sassy Songbirds been up to you might ask?  Well, don't worry because we have been busy birds!  We finally finished our CD "A Sassy Holiday" -- now for sale for $10 or 3 for $25!!!  Please contact us if you are interested in purchasing a Holiday CD and we can arrange to send one to you.  We can't wait to bring them along to all our upcoming performances and we actually sold 3 at our performance last week at Vintage Mission Inn.

We also participated in the Long Beach "Walk to End Alzheimer's" Walk on October 16th.  The Sassy Songbirds were a part of team "Upside to Dementia" and really rallied to raise funds and get involved.  So much so, that "Upside to Dementia" won an award for raising the most donations by a family team!  $4795.00!!!!  We are so proud to be a part of this community and to be surrounded by friends and family who really support us and the cause.  (Upside to Dementia is the name of Kristen's blog about her Dad's journey with Alzheimer's and you can find a link to that on the upper right side of our blog.)

And the past two weeks our motto has been "Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse!!!"  We have four performances this weekend, three of which are Halloween themed.  So, we are learning a whole new show and we're pretty excited about it!  As we all know, there aren't an abundant amount of true Halloween Songs, but we used our imagination and incorporated songs like "Old Devil Moon", "Old Black Magic", "Love Potion Number Nine", "Puff the Magic Dragon", "Witch Doctor", and many more with similar themes.  We are of course featuring Halloween favorites like "Monster Mash", "The Addams Family", "Ghostbusters", "Witchcraft", and "A Pirate's Life for Me".  Below is a behind the scenes video of our rehearsals...

After Halloween we are busy getting ready for Veterans Day, and then Christmas!  So we have no time to waste as our calendar is filling up with gigs!  We're so excited.

 

A Sassy Holiday!!!

Wow!  We have been busy birds lately.  Not only have we booked numerous Halloween and Veterans Day shows, but also we've spent all last week recording and putting the finishing touches on our first CD "A Sassy Holiday"!!!  We are so excited to debut our CD at our upcoming performances where they will be available for $10 to our audience members.  And if any of our fans and blog followers are interested in a copy, please contact us via email or phone!!!  Add some Sassy to your Holidays!!
We'll be featuring the following songs:



Winter Wonderland 
Santa Baby
Silver Bells 
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Boogie Woogie Santa Claus
The Christmas Song
Angels We Have Heard on High/The Holly and The Ivy/Silent Night/Joy to the World
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
Sisters
Away in a Manger (bonus track)


Listen below for a sneak peak... or should I say sneak listen to two of our favorite recordings so far-- Winter Wonderland (in the style of The Lennon Sisters) and Boogie Woogie Santa Claus... we can't wait to choreograph some swing moves to that last one!!!


We made the audio clips into little Holiday Slide-shows because it was easier to upload them that way... Once the holidays roll around, we will have great performance videos to share with you.  For now, enjoy the audio!

Announcing . . . A New Sassy Songbird!!

The Sassy Songbirds have a lot of exciting news!! First of all, a new Sassy Songbird is on it's way. . . Kristen's pregnant!!! We're so excited to announce that Kristen and her husband Blake are expecting their first child in March! Don't worry, we're not going anywhere! We'll still be performing until the end of the year - we're already booking for our Holiday shows!

In fact, we have several Halloween and Veteran's Day performances coming up and we'll also be appearing at the Sugar Plum Festival October 6th & 7th at the OC Fair, and the 13th & 14th at the Buena Park Mall!
Check out our new video below of us singing at the Alzheimer's benefit Kristen and Blake threw at their new home last weekend!!  And don't hesitate to follow us on Facebook and youtube as well!

Patriotic Songs and Tap Dancing

Summer is here!!!! We hope everyone had a Happy Fourth of July. In preparation for that holiday, the Sassy Songbirds expanded their repertoire once more and learned some Patriotic Songs!! And, since we already have one Tap Dancing number in our arsenal with "Anything Goes", we thought we could add one more -- "Yankee Doodle Dandy". We also performed rousing versions of "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful" as well as "You're a Grand Old Flag".

We were able to perform these new songs at The Sugar Plum Fair in the Buena Park Mall and again at Vintage Mission Inn Senior Home in Rosemead (our second time there!). It looks like we may have also booked a future gig with The Sugar Plum Fair at their next event!

Our audience at Mission Inn was so appreciative of our music, and when we were singing the National Anthem, they all started standing one by one with their hands over their heart. We made sure to do a tribute after that song to the men and women who had served our country! One woman came up to Kristen after the show and thanked her for singing "All The Things You Are" by Jerome Kern because her sister sang that song at her wedding in 1959, and not many people sing it anymore. Another woman came up to us and said, "That's our music. That's the real thing."

Our favorite time during our shows is when we get to meet the audience afterward. We are so blessed to be able to bring such high quality and meaningful performances to our audiences.

Below are some Tap Dancing and Patriotic Clips! Enjoy!
"The National Anthem", "You're a Grand Old Flag", and "Anything Goes"!

New Numbers!

Yesterday The Sassy Songbirds had the pleasure of performing at Laguna Woods for the City of Hope Esperanza Chapter Luncheon!!! Our audience was so receptive and we know it's because we had FOUR new numbers in our program:
My Heart Belongs To Daddy
Edelweiss
I Enjoy Being A Girl
All The Things You Are

We were a hit! My Heart Belongs to Daddy is a vampy number with sharp and slinky choreography while Edelweiss shows off our soaring harmonies and nostalgia for beautifully written songs. On the other hand, I Enjoy Being a Girl shows off our girly side as we tell the story of two girls getting ready for a date, and All The Things You Are celebrates the brilliant, dramatic melody of Jerome Kern.

We also spoke to the audience about our background, how we met, how much we learned at UC Irvine where we studied Musical Theater, and the success that we've had in our field in the past ten years. We are so thrilled and blessed to be able to share our love for Music with our audiences! Next up is Father's Day, and we have some Tap numbers that need some polishing before then... so back to the rehearsal studio we go!

Below are videos of Edelweiss and My Heart Belongs To Daddy.

Being Sassy!!

Summer is almost here and The Sassy Songbirds are getting ready to roll out some new numbers! We've been working on some special songs for our upcoming Father's Day programs including a few tap dancing numbers, as well as some patriotic songs for Memorial Day and 4th of July!

Kristen has been having fun with her video editing skills, so here is a compilation video with samples of our choreography, vocals, and themed programs...

Enjoy!

New Heashots and Video Clips!

Hello! We hope you're feeling Sassy, because we certainly are! In the past two weeks we've had four performances and one more to come later this week. We have new pictures and video clips to share and hope these really show you what we're all about -- The Music, The Choreography, The Vocals, and of course Sass & Fun!

Below you'll find video clips of our two most popular duets, "Sisters" and "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend". You'll also enjoy a preview of the types of solos we perform... from Standards, to Broadway, to Hits from 50s & 60s!! We have Kristen singing "I'll Be Seeing You" and Alexis performing "Cabaret". Enjoy! And spread the word! :)

St. Patrick's Day!!!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY! The Sassy Songbirds celebrated by performing two St. Patrick's Day concerts this week! We had such a blast learning all the Irish songs and were pleased to know we picked songs that everyone knew because our audience sang along to many of the songs including:
"My Wild Irish Rose"
"I'm Looking Over A Four Leaf Clover"
"When Irish Eyes Are Smiling"
"Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral"
"Harrigan"
and of course "Danny Boy"

"Harrigan" reminded the audience of the 1942 movie Yankee Doodle Dandy while "Too-Ra-Loo..." and "Danny Boy" had them wiping tears from their eyes. One audience member told us that "Four Leaf Clover" was a popular song on the radio in his first year of high school in 1927! He and his wife are 96 years old and have been married for over 70 years! We're so blessed to be able to chat with our audience members after the performances!

These weren't the only popular songs in our program though, we also featured songs about Luck, Rainbows, and of course, the color Green! These songs included:
"Luck Be A Lady Tonight"
"With A Little Bit of Luck"
"Somewhere Over The Rainbow"
"Look to the Rainbow"
"You Are My Lucky Star"
"Green, Green, Grass of Home"
and "Emeralds are a Girl's Best Friend"

If you notice in our pictures, we may have been having too much fun! We were playing English Cockney street guys in "With A Little Bit of Luck" from My Fair Lady, and then the next minute 1940s gamblers in "Luck Be A Lady" from Guys and Dolls.

"Emeralds Are A Girl's Best Friend" received rousing applause as did the crowd favorite "Somewhere Over The Rainbow".

We're sad that we have to wait another year to perform these songs again because we had so much fun. On a side note, we think the best thing we ever did was buy our Performance Dresses! We get so much feedback about the dresses, the color, the style... etc! We were really thinking of our audiences when we bought those!

Below you will find videos of "Four Leaf Clover", "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" and "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral". Happy St. Patrick's Day! We hope these songs get you in the mood to celebrate the Irish!

Westminster Gardens, Duarte

Our Broadway Performance at Westminster Gardens in Duarte was a huge success! We were so pleased to be able to perform on an actual stage in a great big hall! From the moment we stepped out of the car, our dresses attracted a lot of attention, but after the performance it was all about the music. We had an entourage of audience members waiting to talk to us about the songs and music! They had nothing but good things to say and were already telling their event coordinator to bring us back very soon! Our audience members were so sweet and genuine that we just had to share some of the quotes and feedback:

"I wasn't going to attend the performance, but now that I've seen your beautiful dresses, I have to go."

"You two are so beautiful, you don't even need to sing."

"I was so taken with you in the parking lot, that I left my car engine running during the performance!"

"That is music from 'our time'."

"How does it feel to be so young and beautiful?"

"You sang our music. You made us feel young again."

"How do you hold those notes so long at the end of the song?"

"I knew every word to every song!"

"My question is... Is there a CD?"

During the show, we could see the audience mouthing the words to the songs, and we were so delighted to hear laughter and cheers throughout the entire performance. We had so much fun and can't wait to go back!

Irish Songs

So, what have The Sassy Songbirds been up to lately? Well, DANNY BOY, they've been LOOKING OVER A FOUR LEAF CLOVER hoping to run into a DRUNKEN SAILOR!!! Wait, what?

Oh, you know what that means.... St. Patrick's Day is coming up and we've been brushing up on our favorite Irish Songs! And, we're also featuring songs about 'Luck', 'Rainbows', and of course, the color 'Green'!!

We're so excited to kick up our heels and have a good ole Irish Celebration so if you haven't booked your St. Patrick's Day entertainment yet, please let the Sassy Songbirds bring a taste of the Irish to your home!

Musical Theater Videos!

Here are some more videos from our performance at Laguna Woods Village a few days ago! Enjoy!
First we have "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair" from South Pacific!



Next we have Alexis doing her rendition of "The Trolley Song" from Meet Me In St. Louis!




And last but not least we get a visit from Ado Annie when Kristen sings "I Can't Say No" from Oklahoma!

Laguna Woods Village

Yesterday, The Sassy Songbirds made an appearance at Laguna Woods Village Director's meeting. Laguna Woods is a gated, active community choice for Southern California Independent Resort Style Living, and we were the afternoon entertainment! We performed a thirty minute show for all the Directors of Laguna Woods' many clubs and organizations and we have already gotten a few inquiries for future Gigs!

One of the most exciting aspects of this performance was our NEW DRESSES!!! Unique Vintage in Burbank specializes in period-style dresses and they even had a couple of their dresses worn to The Golden Globes which is why they had apparently filmed with Access Hollywood last week! We were pretty resourceful in finding these dresses and when the store didn't have the correct size and color, we took matters in our own hands and visited the warehouse ourselves!

But, back to our show yesterday! :) Our selection of songs was spot on and there was at least one person singing along to every song we sang. There was even a gentleman in front who sang along with "I Can't Say No" from Oklahoma! Our songs included:

"Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend"
"I'll Be Seeing You"
"I Could Have Danced All Night"
"My Favorite Things"
"The Trolley Song"
"If I Loved You"
"Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair"
"I Can't Say No"
"Somewhere Over The Rainbow"
"Sisters"

Like we mentioned earlier, we already have inquiries for future gigs, so we'll keep everyone updated on those and keep posting our pictures and videos. Below is a video of "Diamond's Are Girl's Best Friend"....

Sunrise at San Marino!!

We were very excited to perform our first Broadway themed concert for the residents and family members of the San Marino Sunrise! It was a true pleasure entertaining the seniors - they were a lovely audience. It was heartwarming to see their eyes light up as they recognized songs from their childhood and teenage years.

Musical theater history was our favorite class in college so we had a blast deciding what songs to sing. Known as the "Golden Age" of Broadway, we decided to concentrate on the classics - Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Lowe, Kander & Ebb, and more! Our duets included "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair" from South Pacific (1949), "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music (1965), and "If Momma Was Married" from Gypsy (1959). The audience swooned as Kristen soared in the emotional, "If I Loved You" from Carousel (1945) and a special guest star resembling Toto appeared right when Alexis was singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" (Wizard of Oz, 1939.) What timing!!

The hour show went by in a flash and we were humbled to receive glorious praise from the residents and the staff. One care-giver said, "You're really singing 'their' music. This is the music of their time." We were happy to hear that our music selection really touched our audience. Thank you San Marino Sunrise!! We look forward to next time!

Above is a picture of The Sassy Songbirds Logo on our Business Card! We love it!