Kewaskum, WI – The FIRST Lego League team from Kewaskum, Team Anonymoose (Anonymous + Moose), is at it again, and they hope to inspire you to play a musical instrument.
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FIRST is a robotics program. The Lego League level (5-8 grade) builds autonomous robots out of Lego. Additionally, they do a project around the yearly theme. This year is all about
increasing participation and awareness in a hobby you enjoy by using art and technology.
Team Anonymoose has competed at the Wisconsin Regional and Sectionals level, achieving the Champions Award at both competitions. They are headed to Wisconsin State competition in Madison in January.
Their project goal is to increase participation and awareness of musical instrument playing. For their project research, they went to the Kettle Moraine Symphony where they met the conductor, Dr. Rick Hynson.
He proposed that composing their own musical piece would be truly inspirational. Additionally, that composition could be played by the students at the Kettle Moraine Symphony’s February 23 Dinner, Drinks, and Diversions concert.
Team member Penny was especially excited about composing with the group. She said, “I have never composed before, but I love taking up the challenge of composing.”
So, the students dug right into the challenge of learning how to compose for their unique quintet of a flute, bassoon, French horn, viola, and guitar. Not only was the instrument combination challenging, but the diversity of playing experience of the team members had to be considered in the composition.
Team member Rose had started playing viola 2 months before, and said “The team worked hard to make music I could play, which made me feel valued.”
The debut performance of their music occurred at the Kewaskum Middle School Band concert on December 12, thanks to the gracious sponsorship of the band teacher Mrs. Holmes.
Team member Kendal said, “It was really hard to perform in front of all our classmates, but we hope that our experience has inspired them to consider playing a musical instrument and composing.”
Team member Claire said, “Composing has been such a fun experience, and I am so glad that our medieval-themed composition has been really appreciated.”
To expand the reach of their project, the team has also been video’ing their work and posting it on their @TeamAnonymoose channel. Each episode on their channel shows a step in their journey, like Episode 2 – Meet the Instruments, and Episode 5 – Revising the Composition.
Click HERE to get to Anonymoose YouTube channel
Team member Lilly said, “You hear all about people with 1 million views on their channel. It is surprisingly hard to start a channel and spread the word. We are super proud to get more than 500 views on our channel; it means we can inspire even more people to try music and composition. We would love if you visited our channel too”
When the team was asked if they had any stories of people they have inspired so far, they shared that Music Coach Jason Furman had been inspired to compose a piece of his own for the first time.
His piece, “Turkey’s Revenge,” was played by the Silverbrook Intermediate School 6th grade string ensemble (Strings of Steel) at their Christmas concert in West Bend. Jason said “I hadn’t put much thought into composing before, but with the inspiration of this team, I decided to give it a try. It was so much fun to see my work come to life.”
“Remember,” Team member Rose said, “You are never too young or old to start playing a
musical instrument or to take up composition. We hope we’ve inspired you to give music a try. It’s Super Fun, especially when you play with friends.”
