By Alan Sarver
- All photos courtesy of Jeff Bartee Photography. www.jeffbartee.com Click on any image to be taken to the gallery of 435 fantastic photos he took that day, all free for download.
Save the Music Festival Chair
The 9th annual Save the Music Festival, held in Twin Pines Park, was a roaring success! Great singers, dancers, bands, orchestras, theater troupes, rock and jazz bands from our schools, community, and the entire Bay Area kept the crowd happy and flowing all day long. Perfect temperatures, sunny skies, and little wind combined with entertainment, a huge range of kids’ activities, fine food, good friends, and a great cause to make this a day worth enjoying, and remembering! Approximately 5,000 visitors made this one of the best-attended Save the Music Festivals yet.
Ralston Honors Orchestra
Starting with the 4th Grade Recorder Band on the Redwood Shores Community Association Children’s Area Stage and the Ralston Honors Band on the Wells Fargo Community Stage, families and friends of nearly 800 performers poured into the Festival to see and hear groups from our Elementary Schools, Ralston Middle School, and Carlmont High School.
Trombone Players from Sinister Dexter
On the Oracle Main Stage, Sinister Dexter tore up the stage again with their hot horns and funky sounds, followed by the College of San Mateo Jazz Big Band, MG & the Booker Ts (featuring the Belmont Horns), and Livewire, the great party / dance band. The whole day was capped off by the UC Davis Cal Aggie Marching Band-Uh! and the Cal Berkeley Marching Band, who visited all three Stages before settling in for a stirring Battle of the Bands on the Vivace Community Meadow, which held the audience enthralled long beyond the scheduled 5:00 Festival closing time.
Cal Aggie Marching Band
Youngsters selected a pumpkin from the Save the Music Pumpkin Patch, and painted it just right. Others visited the Face Painters, to have themselves painted just right. Then, they took turns at the games in the Children’s Area, frolicked in the Bounce House, rode the Titanic Slide, or tackled the Obstacle Course. After that, it was off to the brand new Save the Music University, where kids built race cars with Home Depot or the Boy Scouts, blew fancy bubbles with the Girl Scouts, visited the San Mateo County BookMobile, made a Spin-Art Frisbee or Sand Art project, or tie-dyed a T-Shirt.
MilkshakeWerks! A Popular Treat!
The bigger than ever layout of the Festival meant that there was plenty of room for everyone to spread out, and enjoy each activity at leisure, with plenty of time to savor the great local food from Mistral, Vivace, Saffron, Milk Shake Werks, Streetz Eatz, Sam’s Chowder Mobile, Hot Dog on a Stick, Jamba Juice, the Belmont Lions Club, and the Belmont Park Boosters. All of them did a great business all day long, and there were lots of satisfied customers. Local elected officials, candidates, community services, artisans and businesses rounded out the Midway area.
And, of course, there was the music! No other event gives the local Performing Arts Community – schools, youth groups, and adults – such a great opportunity to offer the gift of music to the public, and the public rarely gets the opportunity to enjoy such a great variety of entertainment in one place, for such a low price – only $5 suggested for adults, $2 for children and seniors. All of the admissions, activity tickets sales, and sponsorship goes to School-Force, the Education Foundation of the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District. With the help of School-Force and Save the Music, the Elementary Instrumental Music program has been preserved in BRSSD for the past nine years, despite the huge cuts to education imposed by the California budget. Your donations to School-Force make all the difference for our kids!
School-Force Board Members Volunteer at the Oracle Philanthropy Booth
The Save the Music team wishes to thank our presenting sponsor, Oracle, and our other major sponsors, including Wells Fargo Bank, the Redwood Shores Community Association, Mistral Restaurant, Vivace Restaurant, Pacific Rubber, Hotel Sofitel, the San Carlos-Belmont Mothers’ Club, and Recology. Please visit the School-Force Business Donors web page at schoolforce.org/business-donors for a complete listing of businesses that have donated to School-Force, and always support the businesses that support our schools!
Our thanks to everyone who attended and supported the Festival, to make it such a rousing success. In particular, everyone’s gratitude goes to the more than 200 volunteers who spent part of their day making sure that the Festival was a safe and happy place for all of our guests! We look forward, as you do, to the 10th annual Save the Music Festival, coming in 2012. It’s sure to be a milestone to remember – we’ll see you then!
If you would like to be part of the Save the Music planning committee, to help make 2012 the best Festival yet, please contact Alan Sarver at asarver@earthlink.net.
Festival Chair Alan Sarver kept everything running smoothly.
