Post from Community: #MKEsingalong revived for Halloween by Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and community partners/ | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Wisconsin Conservatory of Music
October 25, 2020
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With Halloween falling on a Saturday this year, and the pandemic cancelling traditional parties and trick-or-treating, who ya gonna call?
The Wisconsin Conservatory of Music — joined by three community partners — is reviving its Saturday night pandemic #MKEsingalong Facebook event on Oct. 31.
The song choice, naturally, is “Ghostbusters.”
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Event organizers are asking residents to share a smartphone video of themselves safely channeling Ghostbusters and singing the song in costume – by themselves, or with family and friends in their pandemic bubble — via social media on Saturday night, Oct. 31. The official time – when event co-host 88Nine RadioMilwaukee will play “Ghostbusters” on air for the sing-along – will be 7 p.m.  But videos can be shared anytime on social media with the #MKEsingalong hashtag.
The Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, in partnership with Imagine MKE, 88Nine RadioMilwaukee, and Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, also is asking residents who normally would be spending money on candy for trick-or-treaters to donate $5 toward a recorder for a child – a simple musical wind instrument that can launch a musical journey.
A DONATION button can be found on the official “Milwaukee-Wide Window Sing-Along”Facebook event page, where you also can bookmark a reminder for yourself to participate and officially “join” the sing-along: https://www.facebook.com/events/1147751625620296/
When you post your “Ghostbusters” video on social media, be sure to tag it #MKEsingalong. Your video also can be shared more widely if you post it to the official Facebook event page and use the hashtag #MKEsingalong.
All donations will go toward the purchase of recorders for children in the Metcalfe Park neighborhood of Milwaukee, which has been hit especially hard by unemployment and illness during the pandemic. The recorders will be distributed through a vital care package initiative that has been going since March, organized by Metcalfe Park Community Bridges. (https://communityjournal.net/metcalfe-park-community-bridges-organizes-metcalfe-park-be-the-bridge-mutual-aid-initiative/).
The Wisconsin Conservatory of Music also will offer free online recorder lessons for any child who wants to learn recorder at its website, wcmusic.org.
The Conservatory first launched the #MKEsingalong virtual Facebook event in March and invited residents to sing the same song together each Saturday night for several weeks in a row as a sign of solidarity. Simply put, music brings people together. Community residents sang everything from “ABCs” by the Jackson Five to “Lean on Me” in honor of healthcare workers. Television stations across the country shared it.