Bravo!

This past Saturday, seventy (or so) high school students took the stage at the Shrine Ampitheatre for the Youth Sing Praise performance of Lost and Found. They did not disappoint. It was evident that the long week of auditions, rehearsals, and prayer paid off. Congratulations to all involved. Here are a few pictures from the performance (thanks to Marianne Cline for the first three. Thanks to snowsyouthministry.org for the rest):

As we've mentioned before, Orin and Erin were also part of the week. Orin served as the Prayer Coordinator. Here are a couple of pictures highlighting some of the prayer and environment:

Erin's role for YSP was to direct the Helper's Team. Since there is a lot the Helper's Team does and there weren't really any good pictures that could illustrate her work, I chose this one:

Congratulations, again, to all those who worked to make Youth Sing Praise 2008 a tremendous success!

Paul Melley On The News!

Oddwalk friend, and fellow GIA composer Paul Melley, was recently featured in a news story on New England Cable News (NECN). The story highlights Paul's ministry, specifically the opportunity he has to share his music at the International World Youth Day event in Sydney, Australia next month. Here's the report:

Paul is a tremendously talented musician who plays several instruments, including piano, guitar, and saxophone. His debut CD with GIA entitled, Humbled (pictured below), was released last summer.

Orin and I have had the opportunity to hear and play much of Paul's music and have witnessed, first-hand, his ability to touch people's hearts. When he's not jet-setting around the world, Paul serves as the Director of Liturgical Music and is the Assistant Chaplain at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA.

If you're interested in checking out some of his music, click here.

YSP in the BND

The Belleville News-Democrat had a great article and video posted on it's website today about this year's production of Lost and Found at Youth Sing Praise. The video gives a glimpse into the rehearsals for the show and the great work being done by Theatrical Director, John Vallo. It's worth a look. Here's the link:

http://www.bnd.com/living/story/380361.html

'08 YSP Update...sort of

Here are a few pictures taken from the first couple of days at Youth Sing Praise. Since I (Shannon) am not actually at YSP this year, I have no frame of reference for these pictures, so I'll just take a guess as to what's happening in them:

This one's pretty obvious, although it wouldn't be hard (with Photoshop) to erase what's actually on the card and write something else. We could change it to read "Oddwalk is awesome!" or "I love my husband, even when he rips his pants wide open on stage in front of several hundred middle school students".

Here, Orin tries to convince a fellow YSP staffer that his degree in Folklore and Mythology has truly been the secret ingredient for his rise to rock stardom.

After careful review of the manual, Brad and Melissa are horrified to discover that YSP actually stands for "Youth Shaving Platypi". So that's why they're always trying to sneak off. Who knew?

"Daddy...Will You Be At My Wedding?"

This past Saturday, the Cerneka family attended the wedding of friends, Kim Gross and Josh Pierce. Since Erin and Shannon were singing, they were invited to the rehearsal on Friday night.

At some point in the rehearsal, the bride-to-be was nice enough to give the increasingly-restless Madeleine a small veil and bouquet of flowers to play with. Upon receiving these gifts, Madeleine quickly took Noah by the hand and started dragging him around the church, marching him down the aisle several times. Below are a few of pictures from the "ceremony". The woman in the picture is our good friend, Kay:

Lost and Found

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately. A combination of a lull in the Oddwalk schedule, and usual summer craziness for each of us individually, has contributed to the slowdown.

This week, Orin (and wife, Erin) will be helping with another Youth Sing Praise music camp at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, IL. In case you don't know, Youth Sing Praise (or YSP) is a week long Christian theater experience drawing together 70-80 high school students from around the country. In a week, these talented performers will audition for roles in a full-length musical, be worked through grueling rehearsals, participate in a retreat like experience, and finally perform that musical for around 3,000 people at the Shrine Ampitheatre. Oddwalk has posted about past YSP experiences which you can find here, here, here, here, and here!

This year, YSP is performing Lost and Found, written by Rory Cooney, a well-known writer of Catholic liturgical music. If you plan to be in the St. Louis-area next weekend, we recommend that you stop in and see the show. The performance is scheduled for Saturday, June 28th beginning at 7pm. While there is no admission, there will be an opportunity to give a free-will offering. Hope to see you there!

Orin's "Christ Reigns" - Score Available

Here's a pdf of the lead-sheet score to Orin's "Christ Reigns" submission to the NCYC 2009 Theme Song Contest.  That's all, please carry on.

The "Orin Johnson Maneuver"?

Doing a little ego surfing over lunch, I (Orin) was a bit surprised that google turned up something called the "Orin Johnson Maneuver" in its list of hits.

So, I call on our readers, before visiting the particular page, to take some guesses as to what the "Orin Johnson Maneuver" is exactly.  Here are your only hints: the references are found in a book.  Here are a couple critical passages from the pertinent section:

Happy guessing (leave your answers in the comments)!  And once you have, find the true solution right over here.

Bris Milah!

Yesterday, Orin had the honor of attending his first bris!  Well, it wasn't mine (thankfully), just that it was the first on I'd ever been to.  The Cantor at the Temple where I accompany services on many Friday nights and Saturday mornings, Seth Warner and his wife Shayna had a baby boy, Isaac Asher, last Monday.  And, just like it had been done unto Jesus (see Luke 2:21), they brought him to the Temple.

I thought I would be there merely as an observer, but shortly before the service began, the Mohel (the Rabbi who performs the ceremony) asked if I would take some pictures and handed me a camera.  So I did.  Here are a few of them, there are more here.  None are too graphic, if you get my drift.

Congratulations Warner family!

Christ Reigns everywhere, it seems

Here's another one, submitted by the 2007 winners, Nick Cardilino and David C. Smith.  Hear it at David's myspace page.

A More Different "Christ Reigns" - Let the Smack-Talking Begin!

Via the blog, a few posts down, we received a note from a composer of another entry into the NCYC 2009 Theme Song contest.  You can listen to Greg's entry here - it has a nice, Irish-ish melody and thoughtful lyrics.  Visit his blog here or his main site here.

Coincidentally, Greg has written some music and a chapter of a book waiting to be published by...  GIA, the same folks we worked with for our latest CD and the forthcoming songbooks and octavos.

A reminder that you can listen to our entry, "Christ Regins" on the pOddcast, available in the gcast window in the blog sidebar, or over at our main site.

And since Greg extended a similar invitation (in good humor, certainly) to his readers, let us make this offer to ours: 

So now, our dear readers, you can judge for yourselves who should win this contest: us, or our new internet friend Greg (or presumably the many other dozens of entries...).  May the best man (or woman, right Joia?) win! (Feel free to inundate our competitor’s blog with smack talk comments.)

Hear Ye, Hear Ye:

The Cerneka's vacation continues...  The Ramsay family enjoys themes, I (Orin) hear, so I suspect Shannon will have a story when he gets back about what's really going on here.

But in the meantime, let's have a caption contest!  What exactly is Shannon proclaiming?  Leave your best captions in the combox.

Fun in Alabama

Hey Everyone! The Cerneka family is having a great time on vacation in Gulf Shores this week. Shannon will post about the trip once the week is over, but here are a couple pictures of Noah and Madeleine Cerneka enjoying some fun times with the Ramsay clan in the mean time:

Michael Miller posits: "craziest easter tradition ever?"

Watch this video about a unique fireworks celebration in Greece on HowStuffWorks. It's called the rocket war of Vrondados and the objective of the battle is to hit the bell tower of the other side's church, where mass takes place despite the barrage outside. On the eve of Easter Sunday two rival orthodox churches in the town of Vrondados put each other in the firing line of thousands of firework-like rockets.

Two Cerneka Men and a Beach

The Cerneka family vacation with the Ramsay's continues...

Orin would like one of these

Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease? Pretty-please?

Today's "Weird Places to Find Oddwalk's Music" Update

musicgremlin.com and funmen (this second one also appears to be Finnish...)

Guest Contributer - The Good "Old" Days

Hell0 All!

This is Erin - Orin's Erin. I thought I would help the boys out by guest blogging for them. They are both busy vacationing, working, and writing music. Also - the summer camps like Youth Sing Praise and Young Neighbors in Action are upon us but I'm sure they will keep you updated.

I was cleaning up my iphoto library and found some great pictures of Orin and Shannon taken from the road... The road in Biloxi, Mississippi to be exact.

I have traveled with them on many a trip (this particular time they were featured speakers for the Diocese of Biloxi CYO Conference). I must say - surprisingly - it is a bit comparable to life on the road with a rock band: (as I've done that, too) lots of driving, lots of truck stop bathrooms, and lots of hotel breakfasts. The major travel difference is that I'm NOT the only girl anymore.

But I digress...



Oddwalk's Five song CD Little Steps was named on this trip. (After an excruciating 15 hour car ride of discarded titles and a John Tesh concert - that is a story for another time...)





We began this day with a healthy breakfast at IHOP (Rooti Tooti Fresh and FRUITY - see fruit is healthy)


Not sure why I was getting the dirty looks because I certainly wasn't the one wearing a sailor hat)













































This was my drink from the Blow Fly Inn - The fly is fake - Orin and Shannon put it in my water glass. The Blow Fly Inn is no longer there, neither is most of the shoreline of Biloxi - The people there still need our prayers and our help!


So that is a glimpse into life on the road with Oddwalk. There is much more craziness but more often than not - really boring car rides and Orin and Shannon overestimating their 'funny-ness factor.'

Nevertheless - I'm honored to meet many wonderful people and see "The Church" as the Universal Body that it is...


I think Journey sums it up quite eloquently...

" 'Cause lovin' a music man ain't always what it supposed to be..."

Have a safe and blessed summer,
erin

pOddcast Two-fer!

Today on the pOddcast - not just one, but two new entries: different versions of the same song, "Christ Reigns," written by Orin.  If you think you've heard that phrase somewhere before, you're quite right.  Among lots and lots of scripture passages, it is also the theme of the 2009 National Catholic Youth Conference, and Oddwalk is again submitting a song in the theme song competition.  The first one you'll hear is the fast, anthem-esque version.  Then, the second one is a sample of the more prayerful slower version.  Both borrow a familiar phrase from Handel's "hallelujah Chorus."  Helping us on vocals is Orin's friend and coworker, Megan Higgins.  Take a listen, and enjoy (hopefully)!

As always, find the pOddcast in the gcast window of the blog sidebar, or at the main site.

What A Face!

This is a scene from the Big Four Barber Shop in Fulton, MO this morning. Noah and I dropped by to get our pre-vacation haircuts. I managed to get through my haircut without crying. I don't know what Noah's problem was.

Seriously, this was Noah's second haircut ever. I think he was a little scared of the clippers. To his credit, the barber was very quick and was ready with a pack of Smarties when Noah got more and more upset. What a pro.

By the way, thanks to Orin for "carrying" the blog lately. I haven't been able to contribute as much as I would like. It's been a good, but busy few months. I'll probably have more to say when our family gets back from Gulf Shores, AL in a week or so.

-Shannon

Today's Online Music Update

rhapsody.com - with (limited) free online play!

Now available for Euros too!

So this is probably getting tedious for you all, us listing the various places our new CD (which, if you haven;t heard, is titile "Walk Away Different" has turned up online, but this is a little funny - Finland!  Right Here!

And the award for best banner ad on the homepage of that site goes to:

mbop (not the Hanson kind)

So, "Walk Away Different" is now up at mbopmegastore.com - appears to be a British music distribution site.  If you've ever wanted to buy our CD in Pounds instead of Dollars, now's your chance.  And with the US dollar tanking like it is, perhaps that's your best choice...