Tune-Up Philly began as an after-school program of novice Saint Francis de Sales Catholic School student-musicians tentatively playing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” at the beginning of the school year. Hours and hours of practice and a dozen or so concerts later, those same musicians will tackle Beethoven and Rossini today at the year-end concert from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the school (4625 Springfield Ave.)
The program, which features 6 to 13-year-olds and is designed to build self-esteem and a passion for music, has garnered praise across the city throughout the school year. Its director, Curtis Institute of Music graduate Stanford Thompson, hopes to take the program to the Henry C. Lea School (4700 Locust St.) next fall.
Today’s concert, which is free, will feature the Tune Philly Symphony Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, Choir, and String Orchestra.
So here’s an idea: Get a bunch of smart people in a room together and let them talk about their passions in under seven minutes each. To help, throw in some savvy digital presentations. Oh wait, that is actually happening tonight at Studio 34 (4522 Baltimore Ave.).
Pecha Kucha (say peh-CHAK-cha) is the Japanese word for the sound of conversation. The word has taken on added meaning with nights similar tonight all around the world – a sort of show-and-tell for people with really good ideas. A complete list of presenters, including bios, is here.
The rules are simple: show 20 PowerPoint slides, talk about each one for 20 seconds. The night usually includes a lot of socializing as well.
Neighborhood Bike Works is holding the first of many June bike sales today from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. near St. Mary’s Church (3916 Locust Walk).
Today’s sale is being dubbed as a “preview sale” in preparation for the Big Sale next Saturday (June 11) at the same location from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Bike prices will be as low as $20 and some spare parts – like tires and tubes – will also be available. Keep in mind that the cheaper the bike the more likely you will need to do a little work to get it up and running.
Proceeds from the sale will go toward scholarships for the Neighborhood Bike Works’ summer programs.
Philly Beer Week starts today with well over a hundred of venues and more than 30 breweries taking part. A lot of folks are expected to turn up and try hard to prove that Philly is the best beer-drinking city in the land.
What about the left bank? West Philly will be well represented with a good number of participating local pubs. See the full list below. For a complete rundown on events in any neighborhood or with any particular brewery, go to the Philly Beer Week link above and click on “event” and choose.
Two small events are kicking things off tonight in West Philly. Bridgewater’s Pub in 30th Street Station will feature tastings and special prices on a range of Samuel Smith beers from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Also from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., the New Deck Tavern (3408 Sansom St.) will have a “Belgian Blast” with Blue Moon and Hoegaarden pints for $3.50.
We’ll keep you updated on daily events in future posts. Here are a couple of highlights to get you revved up:
• June 5The Philly Cheese Experiment, World Cafe Live ( 3025 Walnut St.), 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. This amateur cooking contest complete with Brooklyn Brewery Beer looks to be savory and sweet. Tickets are $10-$15, which includes a lot of samples.
• June 9Night Market Philadelphia Beer Week Edition, The Blockley Beer Garden (39th and Market Streets), 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. This thing couples two Philly specialities – good beer and killer food trucks.
• June 12Philly Beer Week Music Festival, Dock Street Brewing Co. (50th and Baltimore), 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. This 3rd annual outdoor, all-ages show includes bands, beers and food.
You know the feeling: Standing at a stop some time in off-peak hours, maybe a Sunday morning, looking up Spruce Street or Baltimore Avenue or the El tracks – wondering when the bus, trolley or train will be arriving. You forgot to check the schedule and you’re late and getting later.
Well, SEPTA has unveiled a couple of new services that might ease your angst a little.
A new SMS service will allow you to punch a code for your stop into your phone, send a text to SEPTA and get the next four scheduled stops for your bus, trolley or train. Each of SEPTA’s 18,000 stops regionwide has a code. For now each code (called a “StopID”) is only available on SEPTA’s website here. This summer signs will be installed at all the stops with the unique code number.
The return SMS message with times.
The code is key. For example, the eastbound 34 trolley stop at 43rd and Baltimore has a number (it’s 20875). Send that number to 41411 and you will get a quick reply (it took eight seconds the first time we tried it) with the next four times a trolley is supposed to get to your stop. OK, supposed, is a key word here. There is no guarantee it will be on time. But, hey, they’re getting there.
If you like a little more precision, then look into another new service, TransitView, which is available for 116 bus routes and all of the trolleys (no trains) that service West Philly. For this one, you go to the interface and select your route. A Google map will pop up that will show you the location of all of the vehicles on that route by location. For example, on the map of the 34 (see image) the little red icon is a westbound trolley and the blue icon is eastbound. Using GPS updates, the locations are refreshed every three minutes.
There is a catch. The SMS services won’t work for T-Mobile or Sprint customers, which is a fairly big chunk of the Philadelphia market (about a quarter).
For those who can use them, the services will at least help you kill time while you wait.
Tune-Up Philly began as an after-school program of novice Saint Francis de Sales Catholic School student-musicians tentatively playing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” at the beginning of the school year. Hours and hours of practice and a dozen or so concerts later, those same musicians will tackle Beethoven and Rossini today at the year-end concert from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the school (4625 Springfield Ave.)
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