PARK ALIVE WITH SOUND OF MUSIC; STUDENTS SHINE AT WARNER CENTER CONCERT.

Byline: Deborah Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

Beaming in their spring best, some 60-plus students from Calabash Elementary School belted out a medley of tunes to kick off the Warner Center Concerts in the Park series.

The kindergarten through fifth-grade students exemplified the Valley Cultural Center's focus on melding arts education and public entertainment through this year's concert series.

``Right now the (cultural) center is using the popularity of the Concerts in the Park as a sort of springboard for the other programs we do,'' said Executive Director Suzanne Hackett.

Starting with the song ``Do-Re-Mi'' from ``The Sound of Music,'' the grade-schoolers moved on to a mix of patriotic melodies, including ``My Country 'Tis of Thee'' and ``Yankee Doodle Dandy,'' then finished with ``It's a Small World.''

The students learned the songs during a 14-week crash course in music taught by California State University, Northridge, music major Jodi Cheatham, who worked as one of the cultural center's artists in residence at the Woodland Hills elementary school.

``I wanted to give them a taste of everything,'' said Cheatham, 21, who taught 382 students divided into small groups during weekly half-hour sessions.

Cheatham plunged students into rhythm exercises, singing lessons, American Indian chants and instrument identification by sight and sound.

``It was just jump in, sink or swim, do whatever you can with them,'' she said.

Were her students nervous about their first public performance?

``A little,'' said 9-year-old Alexandra LeBrane, then adding shyly, ``A lot.''

But her friend, 8-year-old Christina Scalisi, said Cheatham made learning the songs a snap.

``She had charts of the words so it was easier for us to memorize,'' she said.

After the Calabash kids performed, the Granada Hills High School Highlander Band, the Lawrence Middle School Band, the El Camino Real High School Camerata Choral Group and the CSUN Youth Orchestra were slated to take the stage.

The show, hosted by crooner Frankie Avalon, was sponsored by Prudential and local resident Beverly Fittipaldo.

The kickoff concert featuring local school musicians was just one of the ways that Concerts in the Park is being interwoven with local educational programs.

Two professional musical groups scheduled for Sunday concerts this summer - Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Queen Ida and her Zydeco Band - will perform demonstrations of Dixieland and Cajun music for 125 children at the West Valley Boys and Girls Club the following day.

``We're hoping kids will come to the concert with their parents Sunday and then Monday morning have the opportunity to spend some intimate time with the performer,'' Hackett said.

While the concert series includes a wide range of professional musicians in styles ranging from jazz to pop to classical, Sue Templeton, 42, whose daughter Emma, 7, was in the Calabash chorus, said one of its biggest impacts may be in introducing young performers to ``the thrill of being onstage in front of an audience.''

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1) Members of El Camino Real High School's Camerata Choral Group perform at a concert Sunday in Woodland Hills' Warner Center.

(2) The free musical show, the first in an annual summer series, also featured students from Granada Hills High School's Highlander band.

Phil McCarten/Daily News