Last Thursday night — with little fanfare, but tremendous talent and spirit — the Staples Music Department offered a phenomenal concert.
A fundraiser for the Sandy Hook Family Fund, it featured the elite Orphenians a cappella singing group, and chamber orchestra.
If you weren’t there, you missed an amazing night. Fortunately, Jim Honeycutt — the indefatigable Media Lab director — produced an 18-minute “highlight reel.”
The 1st clip is the Orphenians’ “There Will Be Rest,” by Frank Ticheli (Luke Rosenberg, director).
The 2nd is from the Chamber Orchestra’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” by Mozart (Adele Valovich, director).
The 3rd series of clips, with the combined groups, is from the movements of Schubert’s “Mass No. 2 in G Major”: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus
and Agnus Dei.
Click below for this inspiring performance. If your browser does not support a direct link, click here, then click on the YouTube video.
(The full video is available on Channel 78, at 8 p.m. most evenings.)
It may not be as famous as recording studios like Motown’s Hitsville USA, Muscle Shoals Sound or Abbey Road, but Staples’ Media Lab makes music with the best of them.
Just ask Jacqueline Devine.
Jacqueline Devine, as seen on iTunes and Amazon.
The high school junior has sung all her life. She wrote her 1st song at 11. In 9th grade, her original tune “Just Be” was released on iTunes.
With 50 songs to her credit — and her own YouTube channel — Jacqueline is an accomplished artist. But she’s no Taylor Swift. For an 11th grader, studio time is expensive.
When a guidance counselor mentioned the Staples Media Lab — literally around the corner — Jacqueline was intrigued. Audio production instructor Jim Honeycutt offered to record 6 tracks after school. Three talented Staples musicians — fiddler Sam Weiser, bassist Olivia Kapell and drummer Mike Ljungberg — were her band.
It’s not the 1st time Jim’s done that. Other solo artists and groups have recorded CDs in the well-equipped studio.
Yet this time — as 2 student engineers recorded rhythm tracks — Jim shot video. When Jacqueline returned to record vocal overdubs, he set up 3 cameras.
The result: this professional-looking music video.
“She’s a rarity,” Jim says. “We’ve had great singers and songwriters over the years at Staples.
“But Jacqueline is a great-looking girl who writes, plays pianos and sings her own songs. I think they’ve got potential.”
Jacqueline told Jim she’ll probably end up in a more secure career than pop music. He chuckled: Before teaching, he was a musician himself. (His folk/rock/ country band the Repairs was signed by Andrew Loog Oldham to Rare Earth Records.)
“She’s legit,” he says. “Whatever she does, she’ll probably always dabble with music, and write songs.”
And when she hits the big time, she’ll always remember how she got her start — back in her high school recording studio.
A recent “Good Morning Staples” TV broadcast. Jacqueline’s interview begins at the 4:30 mark.
If you love the Staples Candlelight Concert — and who doesn’t? — what could be better than hearing it again on radio?
How about hearing the last 11 Candelights played non-stop, beginning tomorrow (Friday) afternoon and continuing straight through early next week?
Candlelight 2011 (Photo/Lynn U. Miller)
The Candlelight Concert — the high school music department’s annual gift to the town — is a soaring, inspiring and beautiful collection of vocal, orchestral and band music. There are hymns, carols, Hanukkah and African music, and a lovably schlocky production number.
Now, thanks to the miracle of modern technology – and the good, old-fashioned hard work of media instructor Jim Honeycutt — every Candlelight from 2001 through two weeks ago will be streamed live on the internet on WWPT, 90.3 FM. (It will also run in the background as part of the school district’s stream — and will be broadcast as background music on Cablevision Channel 78.)
The Staples Media Lab began recording the concerts — actually, the final rehearsal — in 2001. The idea for the CDs — and help with the initial recordings — came from student Robert Anstett.
The program design was used for the 1st CD covers. Quickly though, the art department got involved. Now students in the Advanced Design and Technology class create the covers.
Honeycutt and his crew work hard to produce CDs in time for each year’s shows. Profits are donated to the media, music and art departments. Some of the money went to purchase a new stereo microphone preamp, making this year’s CD “the best-sounding ever,” Honeycutt says.
9 Candlelight covers. (Collage created by Jim Honeycutt)
Why does he do it?
“Maybe because of my love of music,” Honeycutt muses.
“Maybe cause I think the memory of these wonderful concerts should be preserved. Maybe because I have the most amazing job in the world. I don’t know — but I’m happy to do it.”
The reward, Honeycutt says, comes from the faces of audience members leaving each concert, who are thrilled to have CDs of the impressive performances. One mother owns every one.
Now, musicians, alumni, parents, Candlelight fans — and anyone else with an internet connection — can enjoy 11 years’ worth of wonderful concerts.
It’s the music department — and Jim Honeycutt’s — gift to the world.
(Click here to listen live to WWPT-FM. And — though this has nothing to do with the Staples Media Lab — hard-core Candlelight addicts can listen to the 1972 concert, available through Westporters.com — click here, then click on the lower left corner.)
This past spring, Staples students Jeremy Dreyfuss and Dustin Lowman were casting about for an interesting end-of-the-year senior internship.
Media production teacher Jim Honeycutt wanted something real, authentic and important for them.
Meanwhile, superintendent of schools Elliott Landon and director of human resources Marge Cion needed a video to show job candidates — potential teachers — what the Westport school district is all about.
It sounded like a great idea. But it turned out nothing like what the educators expected.
Whew.
“I originally thought it would be a recruitment-type thing — very factual, not real personal,” Dr. Landon says.
That’s not what Jeremy and Dustin had in mind.
The longtime friends decided to revisit their old schools, and talk to former teachers.
They took their video camera to King’s Highway Elementary School and Coleytown Middle. There — and of course at Staples — they conducted interviews and shot film. They researched the schools and town, added special footage, and produced a professional-looking video that gives anyone considering teaching here a unique teenage/inside view of the system.
Which, now that the Westport educators think about it, is entirely the point.
“This really makes a memorable impression,” Dr. Landon notes. “Their personal insights and affection for the district really come across strongly. It’s very creative and different.”
In the video, Jeremy and Dustin say that they continue to visit former teachers. They add, “some of our deepest connections” were made in school.
They filmed a wide variety of teachers: men and women of different ages, backgrounds and subject matters.
The seniors asked questions like “How did you end up in Westport?” And, “What do kept you here?”
The answers — delivered in each teacher’s personal style — include concepts like “the environment,” “the experiences,” “the challenge,” “being in the forefront” and “learning from colleagues.”
And — over and over and over again — “the kids.”
Dr. Landon proudly posted the video on the district website’s human resources page.
Before clicking “play,” prospective teachers learn that students here are empowered to use their creativity.
Once they watch the 12-minute video, potential applicants are even more impressed.
“If someone is looking for an environment in which kids themselves say they had a fabulous experience — they loved their teachers, learned a lot and grew here — that will have a real positive impact on the type of people we’re trying to attract,” Dr. Landon says.
Who will then influence the next generations of Dustin Lowmans and Jeremy Dreyfusses, who in turn…
In the 1960s, Staples’ WSRB was cutting-edge — one of the first student radio stations in the country. Its range was 1 mile.
In 1972 WWPT — all 330 watts — became the 1st student-run FM station in the state. Over the years it increased its power. Today 90.3 can be heard throughout Fairfield County.
In 2009 the Staples Media Lab added TV. STN — the Staples Television Network — quickly became an integral part of the school.
Think “network” is a bit grandiose? Think again. STN is streamed live (as is WWPT). So while Westporters can watch Channel 78, shows are also available any place on the planet, in real time. All you need is an internet connection.
STN’s bread-and-butter is sports. They televise home football games, and boys and girls basketball. (The events are simulcast on WWPT.)
STN has also done indoor track meets — perhaps the 1st time that sport has been covered on TV anywhere, at any level.
But as good as DJ Sixsmith, Eric Gallanty and the rest of the sports crew is — and they’re very, very good — STN is not exactly ESPN.
They’re much more diverse.
Eric Gallanty and DJ Sixsmith on air during a Staples football game. (Photo courtesy of Westport Patch)
The Staples TV station has broadcast Candlelight Concerts, graduations and elections. As with sports, coverage of those events features multiple cameras, sophisticated graphics, and plenty of inside knowledge.
STN also televises live bands — who come to the studio as part of Staples’ audio production courses. (The Media Lab’s talented instructors, Jim Honeycutt and Mike Zito, also teach TV production and radio production.)
This spring, STN hopes to televise baseball and girls lacrosse. Next fall they’d like to add boys and girls soccer, and field hockey.
To do that — and more — they need money and equipment.
They can’t sell advertising — something about pesky FCC regulations — so they’re asking sports teams (and anyone else) for checks.
Their equipment wish list includes:
LCD or plasma television/display
SD-SDI recorder or tape deck (instant replay solution)
VHF and UHF radios or walkie-talkies (RF Communications)
Broadcasting headsets
Graphic or text generators
MacPro or MacBook (or another omputer running some form of Apple OSX)
Cameras with S-Video connection
This being Westport, plenty of folks have that stuff lying around in attics or garages. Others have access to it through work (legally, of course).
If you can help Staples Television Network with a check, a computer or anything else, email staplestelevisionnetwork@gmail; call 203-341-1379, or write the Media Lab, c/o Staples High School, 70 North Ave., Westport, CT 06880.
Generations of Westporters know Jim Honeycutt as a teacher — 1st of social studies, then computer education, now running Staples’ Media Lab audio and TV production classes.
Occasionally he alludes to his old rock ‘n’ roll days. Now — in cyberspace, which he and his students are so wired into — there’s proof.
Honeycutt has created a podcast about Repairs, his folk/rock/country band of the late 1960′s and early ’70s. He did it to demo an assignment he gave his Audio Production class: Make a podcast about your favorite album.
Honeycutt’s podcast (click here to listen) offers a fascinating insight into the music industry, back in the day. Repairs formed at Fairfield University, where Honeycutt and Peter McCann met through a freshman week orientation talent show. Gradually, other talented musicians — including Honeycutt’s soon-to-be 1st wife, a Manhattanville College student — joined the group.
Their mostly original music featured tight harmonies. It was wide-ranging, eclectic, sometimes even psychedelic. Think a combination of Buffalo Springfield, Loggins and Messina, the Pozo Seco Singers, Jefferson Airplane and the Association (if you can).
Repairs was “discovered” in 1971, on Westport’s Jesup Green. They were playing there — the podcast does not explain why — and in the audience was Andrew Loog Oldham. The podcast doesn’t say why the producer of the Rolling Stones was at Jesup Green either, but he liked what he heard. He signed Repairs to a contract with Rare Earth Records — a subsidiary of Motown — and in 1971 the label released the group’s 1st album, “Already a Household Word.”
The cover of Repairs' 1st album. Jim Honeycutt is at far left, wearing sandals.
It was not a huge commercial success, Honeycutt says in the podcast. It did well in Westport, however — for a few weeks outselling the Beatles at Klein’s Department Store — and in parts of Europe too.
Two more Repairs albums followed. Neither achieved much acclaim, and eventually the band broke up.
Nearly 4 decades later, Repairs has found new life — in Staples’ Media Lab, on iTunes and throughout cyberspace.
STN’s bread-and-butter is sports. They televise home football games, and boys and girls basketball. (The events are simulcast on WWPT.)
