Guitar with Tricia S.

Tricia S. Founder of CATS-Creating Arts Together With Songs Multi-instrumentalist/ Mezzo soprano/ Songwriter/ Music Integration Educator/ Performing & Recording Artist Tricia S. a Chicago transplant originally from Corpus Christi, Texas, is the founder of CATS-Creating Arts Together With Songs, a music company for families teaching world music and music integration through performance, custom classes and residencies, and private lessons. As an educator, Tricia S. worked with the Old Town School of Folk Music for seventeen years teaching Bilingual Wiggleworms, Coro de Las Americas, Latin Rhythms, Estudiantina, Romantic Songs in Spanish, Beginner Guitar in English and Spanish, and more. Tricia also worked with Ravinia Festival's Outreach Discovery Program for over a decade teaching music integration to children in Chicago's schools with underdeveloped art programs in the Spanish speaking communities. She collaborated with teachers to create unique lesson plans that would incorporate both musical goals and academic themes. Tricia taught k-3rd grade students and teachers singing, recorders, percussion, choir, songwriting, theater, art, dance, and all aspect for several classrooms to preform a "Cluminating Event" for approx. 45 mins. Students also traveled to Ravinia and preformed a smaller set for other city schools and to open the concert season. In the past, Tricia was the assistant director for the Estudiantina Corpus Christi ensemble at Texas A&M in CC, TX teaching voice, choir, lute, mandoline, guitar, bass, bandurria and performance for two levels of this traveling ensemble. Before that she shared her love for teaching at two private middle schools directing both band and choir. Tricia's principle instrument in school and college was oboe before she made the switch to voice education. She has toured extensively in Mexico, Spain, and United States and continues to perform and record in Chicagoland and abroad. Her CD Canta Conmigo-Sing With Me, has songs featured in many compilations CDs and the song El Chocolate was rerecorded in New York for a national ad campaign for Life Cereal. The song was also aired on ABC's hit sitcom Ugly Betty. The Chicago Tribune says, Tricia's playful, robust soprano could spark a Tex-Mex campfire; her CD Canta Conmigo crackles with classical guitar and hand percussion. Tricia's latest release Corazon Alegre-Happy Heart is a collection of traditional and original tunes with a fusion of world rhythms. The song the Fisherman received an honorable mention for Best Americana Song in the Billboard Songwriting Competition and the CD was reviewed as one of the nations top 10 CDs for Children in 2009 by the Tribune papers across the country.