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!