The Langley Schools Music Project

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The Langley Schools Music Project CD
The Langley Schools Music Project CD

The Langley Schools Music Project is a collection of children's chorus recordings made from 1976-77 by Canadian music teacher Hans Fenger in a school gymnasium in Langley, British Columbia, near Vancouver. The students performed unique versions of pop hits by the likes of The Beach Boys, David Bowie, and Paul McCartney. The recordings were quickly forgotten until author, WFMU radio DJ, and "outsider music" enthusiast Irwin Chusid rediscovered them in 2000. After ten label rejections, he managed to get the album released on Bar/None Records, and it immediately created an international buzz, making many end-of-the-year best album lists in 2001. VH-1 coordinated a reunion of Fenger and dozens of his former students in 2002, and produced a documentary about the project.

[edit] Discography

Lochiel, Glenwood, and South Carvolth Schools, 1976

  1. You're So Good To Me
  2. To Know Him Is To Love Him
  3. Help Me, Rhonda
  4. Space Oddity
  5. I'm Into Something Good
  6. Band on the Run
  7. Rhiannon
  8. Little Deuce Coupe
  9. Saturday Night


Hans Fenger and Wix-Brown Elementary School LP, 1977
Hans Fenger and Wix-Brown Elementary School LP, 1977

Hans Fenger/Wix-Brown Elementary School, 1977

  1. Venus and Mars/Rock Show
  2. You're Sixteen
  3. Wildfire
  4. In My Room
  5. I Get Around
  6. The Long and Winding Road
  7. Desperado
  8. Good Vibrations
  9. God Only Knows
  10. Sweet Caroline
  11. Mandy
  12. Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft


Innocence & Despair, 2001
(Compilation of previous 2 LPs, recorded 1976-77)

[edit] Quotes

  • "The backing arrangement is astounding. Coupled with the earnest if lugubrious vocal performance you have a piece of art that I couldn't have conceived of, even with half of Colombia's finest export products in me." - David Bowie (on "Space Oddity")
  • "The effect of all those young voices singing 'Calling Occupants' is charming." - Richard Carpenter, The Carpenters
  • "When I heard about the Langley project, it seemed very interesting, but I did have the thought that it might sound like children singing off-key in a gym. The reality blew me away-- a haunting, evocative wall-of-sound experience that is affecting in an incredibly visceral way. What an amazing CD!" - Fred Schneider, The B-52s
  • "I find myself calling friends, turning The Langley Schools Music Project up really loud, holding the phone out and going, 'Can you hear that?' I put it on at odd times during the day, tuning it in and out, sometimes wincing as the singers hit a strange note, then shaking my head in puzzled wonder when the music suddenly, and against all odds, transcends the kitsch limitations that seem designed to keep it earthbound and soars off into the realm of true art. It flies -- crooked as a butterfly's flight, but it still flies. I wish every school taught music like this. I wish every piece of music recorded in a school gymnasium were this haunting... and then I suspect that, if I listened to them right, maybe they would be." - Neil Gaiman
  • "I knew virtually nothing about conventional music education, and didn't know how to teach singing. Above all, I knew nothing of what children's music was supposed to be. But the kids had a grasp of what they liked: emotion, drama, and making music as a group. Whether the results were good, bad, in tune or out was no big deal -- they had élan. This was not the way music was traditionally taught. But then I never liked conventional 'children's music,' which is condescending and ignores the reality of children's lives, which can be dark and scary. These children hated 'cute.' They cherished songs that evoked loneliness and sadness." - Hans Fenger, Langley music supervisor/arranger

[edit] External links

See also: Outsider Music, Kidz Bop

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