Dear Fellow Educators,
Trail Elementary is a small school serving approximately 300 students in grades 3 through 5. We are located in a rural section of Eastern Wyoming. The majority of our students rarely get to experience the arts. As the principal of Trail Elementary School, I was very interested when we were presented with the opportunity of hosting acclaimed musician, Andy Hackbarth, to work with our students. It was fantastic, and will be an experience our students remember forever!
Mr. Hackbarth is an amazing vocalist, guitar player, storyteller and teacher! He had our 3rd, 4th and 5th graders (and teachers as well!) singing, clapping and laughing for the duration of his performance. It was very personable. Mr. Hackbarth's genuine love for and ease in interacting with kids is obvious. He brought his songs and his playing to share with us but left the students with a powerful message about living and about making important decisions. All students need to experience the arts. We are all very grateful to Mr. Hackbarth for sharing his talent with us. It was inspirational, informative and fun!
Sincerely,
John Riddle, Principal
Trail Elementary School
Torrington, WY 82240
Andy Hackbarth not only provided an inspiring and entertaining program for the teens of the Summit County Library this summer, but he showed great flexibility and kindness working with this sometimes difficult age group. Even though the kids had been partying to celebrate the end of summer reading program for an hour before Andy started his presentation, Andy was able to capture their attention and imaginations right away. The teens had a great time coming up with song titles from magazines, and they thought they had Andy stumped when they chose, "For everything else there's MasterCard." Andy barely hesitated before starting to solicit ideas from the kids to go with their song title. The resulting song demonstrated to the students that songwriting (and exercising their poetry skills) is fun. We're very happy to have had Andy participate in the grand finale of our summer reading program.
Janet Good, Branch Manager
North Branch Summit County Library
Silverthorne, CO 80498
Andy's songwriting workshop was a big hit with my library! The teens who participated commented that they enjoyed Andy's teaching style and loved learning the "ins" of writing songs from a professional. One participant told me that the final part of the workshop—writing an actual song as a group—has helped her tremendously with her own songwriting.
Mark Decker, Teen/Outreach Librarian
Bemis Public Library
Littleton, CO 80120
We were so pleased to have Andy Hackbarth come to our library this summer. Andy did a workshop on songwriting for the kids as part of our "Be Creative at Your Library" Summer Reading Program.
The kids were really engaged by Andy. The information was very interesting. The song that they created during the workshop was catchy. Andy has a gentle temperament and he is wonderful with kids. The participants responded well to him.
He did perform some of his own music, which was excellent. I would most definitely have him do a program at our library again!
Elizabeth vonTauffkirchen
Lavenia McCoy Public Library
Bayfield, CO 81122
I highly recommend Andy Hackbarth as a presenter, program coordinator and performer.
I was initially very impressed with his entrepreneurial thinking in researching the summer reading program theme and creating programs to sell to libraries. He even went so far as to have program summaries (for a variety of age groups), promotional materials, employment forms, images etc. available.
Andy worked very well with all ages. Our event was attended by older teens as well as elementary school-aged children, and he was able to relate with and include everyone. The kids learned a lot about the music industry from Andy and had loads of fun creating their own song with him. The preceding family concert was incredibly well attended as Andy played throughout a short rain storm (we were outside) and took complete responsibility for setting-up, packing-up and providing necessary equipment.
Andy is young and talented, and provides a wonderful opportunity for your students to learn from his passion for music.
Lisa Osur, Young Adult Services Librarian
Pitkin County Library
Aspen, CO 81611
Andy Hackbarth was a great addition to our Tween summer programming! The kids listened attentively to everything he had to say and really enjoyed the process of creating a song together. I think recording the song at the end was the highlight for the kids. This program is great for ages 9 on up through teens.
Betty McDonald, Children's Librarian
Pikes Peak Library District
Andy's program was highly engaging. Not only were his songs contemporary (a must have for teens), but his rapport with the students was outstanding. He incorporated current events into his program, and showed the kids that thinking critically about the media could be fun.
Kelly Miller, Teen Summer Reading Program Coordinator
Lavenia McCoy Public Library
Bayfield, CO 81122