Archives for February 2016

Ollies Blocks is launching its line of unique wooden building blocks for kids. The tactile blocks interlock to allow children to create various objects and explore their creativity while playing with eco-friendly products with a nostalgic design. They encourage imagination and spatial recognition by using three of the four types of child learning; visual, tactile, and kinesthetic.

Check it out!

Credit: Ollies Blocks. No compensation was received. 

Six-time GRAMMY^® Award winner Lady Gaga will be the recipient of the Jane Ortner Artist Award at the GRAMMY Museum^®‘s 2016 Jane Ortner Education Award Luncheon on April 4, 2016 at Ron Burkle’s Green Acres home in Beverly Hills, Calif. The Artist Award honors a performer who has demonstrated passion and dedication to education through the arts. The recipient of this year’s Jane Ortner Education Award, which honors K-12 academic teachers who use music in the classroom as a powerful educational tool, will be announced shortly.

The luncheon will be marked by special performances from Lady Gaga and nine-time GRAMMY winner and Oscar winner John Legend, the recipient of the Museum’s first-ever Jane Ortner Artist Award.

Building on the Museum’s successful education programs and initiatives, the Jane Ortner Education Award for teachers and the Jane Ortner Artist Award were established by the GRAMMY Museum in partnership with Charles B. Ortner — entertainment attorney, Museum Board member and husband of the late Jane Ortner, a devoted and beloved public school teacher who valued music as a tool for teaching academic subjects and building confidence and community.

“The enormous impact Lady Gaga has had on artists and fans began with a strong educational foundation,” said Bob Santelli, Executive Director of the GRAMMY Museum. “Her career trajectory, marked by extraordinary talent and creativity, is one of the most inspiring stories in music. We couldn’t be more honored to recognize Lady Gaga with this year’s Jane Ortner Artist Award.”    

The Jane Ortner Education Award for teachers is unique in that it celebrates educators who incorporate music into teaching academic subjects such as English language arts, history, math, and science. Program participants recognize that making music a central part of the educational experience fosters the development of a broad range of social skills, including creative expression, confidence-building, collaboration, and social responsibility. Previous recipients include California educators Erica Amann (El Dorado High School), Sunshine Cavalluzzi (El Dorado High School), Bianca Wilson Cole (Washington Prep High School), Kylie Ko (Mark Keppel Elementary School), and Nicole Naditz (Bella Vista High School). Past recipients of the Jane Ortner Artist Award are John Legend, Janelle Monáe and Jackson Browne.

The Museum’s inaugural Jane Ortner Education Award Luncheon was held on July 16, 2014, in Los Angeles and featured a keynote address from First Lady Michelle Obama, who noted, “Every arts organization in this country should be embracing the mission of the GRAMMY Museum.”

All proceeds from the luncheon will benefit the continued expansion of the Jane Ortner Education Award program, which offers professional development workshops for teachers and a free online library of music-integrated curricula. The luncheon will also benefit additional music education initiatives of the Museum, which reach more than 25,000 youth annually through Museum tours, educational workshops and summer and after-school programs.

The recipient of the 2016 Jane Ortner Education Award will be honored at the Luncheon on April 4, 2016 in Los Angeles, and will receive two tickets to the 58th Annual GRAMMY Awards on Feb. 15, 2016, and an admission scholarship for a trip for his or her class to the Los Angeles-based GRAMMY Museum. For more information on the award and the application process, please visit GRAMMYMuseum.org.

For information on purchasing tables and tickets to the event, please contact Valentina Martinez in the Development department at 213.765.6812.

About Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga is a one-of-a kind artist and performer. She holds the distinction of generating three consecutive Number One albums on the Billboard Hot 100, continuously topping the charts with pop hits including, “Just Dance,” “Poker Face,” “Paparazzi,” “Bad Romance,” “Telephone,”  “Alejandro,” “Born This Way,” “The Edge of Glory,” and “Applause.” Described as the “Queen of Pop” by Rolling Stone magazine, she has won six GRAMMY Awards and amassed an outstanding 27 million global album sales and 146 million single sales, making her one of the best-selling musicians of all time.

Known for her massive pop anthems and her fashion-forward aesthetics, Lady Gaga has expanded her talents to television this Fall appearing as The Countess on Ryan Murphy’s anthology series “American Horror Story: Hotel” for FX Network, a role that recently garnered Lady Gaga a Golden Globe Award. The fifth season of the thriller series premiered on October 7.

Lady Gaga has successfully collaborated with multi-platinum artists ranging from Beyoncé to Tony Bennett — with whom she released Cheek To Cheek, a collection of American Jazz standards that won the 2015 GRAMMY Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. Together they recently toured Cheek To Cheek, a live tour inspired by their 2014 PBS TV special which received a 2015 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Variety Special.

The first woman and one of three artists to receive two RIAA’s Digital Diamond Awards, Lady Gaga has won six GRAMMY Awards, 13 MTV Video Music Awards, been nominated for two Emmy Awards, been named one of “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” by Forbes four years in a row, been featured as Billboard‘s “Artist of the Year” multiple times, and been named one of the world’s most influential people by Time. Earlier this year, Lady Gaga was awarded the “Young Artist Award” at the National Arts Awards presented by Americans for the Arts, in recognition of her artistic success and young leadership. Lady Gaga and her creative talents were also recently recognized by the Songwriters Hall of Fame with their first-ever “Contemporary Icon Award,” an award celebrating her iconic status in pop culture, and by Billboard as their “2015 Woman of the Year.”

Known for her innovative and exciting fashion and performances, Lady Gaga has delighted her fans with massive tours including “The Fame Ball Tour” and “The Monster Ball Tour,” which became the highest-grossing tour in history for a debut headlining artist. Her 2012/13 “Born This Way Ball” was ranked as the fifth highest-grossing tour in 2012 by Pollstar. It was followed by 2014’s “ArtRAVE: The ARTPOP Ball” which reached more than one million fans across 24 countries, making it one of the year’s highest-grossing tours.

With over 3.4 billion combined views of all her videos online, Lady Gaga is one of the biggest living forces in social media with over 61 million likes on Facebook, over 53 million followers on Twitter, and over 12.8 million followers on Instagram.

In 2012, Lady Gaga and her mother Cynthia Germanotta launched the Born This Way Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering youth, embracing differences and inspiring kindness and bravery. She is also an outspoken activist and philanthropist, having been an outspoken supporter of many important issues including LGBT rights, HIV/AIDS awareness and body image issues. Lady Gaga’s most recent single, “Til It Happens to You,” co-written by her and Diane Warren, accompanies the 2015 documentary film, THE HUNTING GROUND, furthering her activism and tackling the issue of sexual assault on college campuses in the United States. This powerful record is currently nominated for a GRAMMY Award, an Academy Award and a Critics’ Choice Award.

About John Legend

Ohio-born John Legend is a critically acclaimed, multi-award winning, platinum-selling singer-songwriter. His work has garnered him nine GRAMMY Awards, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, the BET Award for Best New Artist and the special Starlight Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame, among others. A graduate of University of Pennsylvania where he studied English and African-American literature, Legend participated in a wide range of musical activities while in college. During the same period, Legend was introduced to Lauryn Hill, who hired him to play piano on her track “Everything Is Everything,” and shortly thereafter he began to play shows around the Philadelphia area, eventually expanding his audience base to New York, Boston, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. After college, Legend was introduced to then up-and-coming hip-hop artist Kanye West, who quickly signed Legend to his G.O.O.D. Music imprint and hired him to sing vocal hooks on some of his music. Legend started gaining momentum through a series of similar collaborations with established artists, adding vocals to an impressive list of chart-topping hits including West’s “All of the Lights,” Jay Z’s “Encore” and back-up vocals on Alicia Keys’ 2003 song, “You Don’t Know My Name.” Legend’s debut album, Get Lifted, was released in December of 2004 through Columbia Records. The critically acclaimed album spawned the artist’s first hit single, “Ordinary People,” and scored Legend multiple GRAMMY Awards in 2006, including Best R&B Album, Best New Artist and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. The follow up was 2006’s platinum-selling Once Again, which brought Legend another GRAMMY, Best Male R&B Performance, for his single “Heaven,” and included collaborations with Kanye West, will.i.am and Raphael Saadiq. Legend’s next release was 2008’s Evolver, led by the hit single “Green Light” featuring Andre 3000. His 2010 collaboration with the Roots, Wake Up, won the GRAMMY for Best R&B Album a year later. Legend’s highly acclaimed fourth and most current studio album Love In the Future, features  “All of Me,” Legend’s highest selling and charting song to date, reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #1 on both Mainstream Top 40 and Rhythmic charts. Most recently, Legend won his first Academy Award, first Golden Globe Award, and won the 2015 Critics’ Choice Award for his song “Glory,” that he wrote and performed with Common, for the film SELMA.

Throughout his career, Legend has worked to make a difference in the lives of others. In 2007, he launched the Show Me Campaign (ShowMeCampaign.org), an initiative that focuses on education as a key to break the cycle of poverty. The 2010 BET Humanitarian of the Year award, the 2009 CARE Humanitarian Award for Global Change, the 2009 Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Humanitarian Service Award from Africare and the 2011 Harvard Foundation Artist of the Year Award recognize Legend’s efforts and leadership in this arena. Legend sits on the boards of The Education Equality Project, Teach for America, Stand for Children and the Harlem Village Academies and co-chairs the Harlem Village Academies’ National Leadership Board. Additionally, Legend supports LRNG, a movement dedicated to inspiring innovation in the learning process to one that better reflects the world we live in today. In 2015 Legend initiated the #freeAmerica campaign; a campaign designed the change the national conversation of our country’s misguided policies and to make a change in America’s criminal justice system. Legend also serves as one of the principles for Get Lifted Film Co., a film and television production company based in Los Angeles. Get Lifted Film Co. has sold several projects in television to networks including Showtime, NBC, HBO, USA, MTV, OWN and FOX. In addition to these sales, Get Lifted Film Co. was previously in a television deal with Comcast/Universal and is currently in an overdeal with Legendary Television. Get Lifted Film Co. serves as Executive Producers on the HBO documentary Southern Rites and Pop Network docu-series “Sing it On,” both which premiered in May 2015. Additionally, Get Lifted Film Co. has several projects in various stages of development/production including The Black Count (2014 Pulitzer Prize Winner) to be written and directed by Cary Fukunaga (True Detective) for Sony Pictures, and an upcoming project with producer Will Packer and Universal Pictures.

About The GRAMMY Museum
The GRAMMY Museum is an independent, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization created as a partnership  between The Recording Academy and AEG. Paying tribute to music’s rich cultural history, the one-of-a-kind, 21st century Museum explores and celebrates the enduring legacies of all forms of music, the creative process, the art and technology of the recording process, and the history of the premier recognition of excellence in recorded music. The GRAMMY Museum features 30,000 square feet of interactive permanent and traveling exhibits, with four floors of dynamic and engaging multimedia presentations, and is located within L.A. LIVE, the downtown Los Angeles sports, entertainment and residential district. Through thought-provoking and dynamic public and educational programs and exhibits, guests will experience music from a never-before-seen insider perspective that only the GRAMMY Museum can deliver. For more information, please call 213-765-6800 or visitwww.grammymuseum.org. For breaking news and exclusive content, follow @TheGRAMMYMuseum on Twitter and Instagram, and like “The GRAMMY Museum” on Facebook.

Credit: The GRAMMY Museum.

In honor of St. Valentine’s Day, Rancho Los Cerritos will offer “after-hours” candlelit tours on Saturday, February 13, 2016.

Visitors will tour the adobe home with a costumed guide and witness a Century of Romance through historical vignettes reenacted by living history characters. Meet Juan & Rafaela Temple, builders of the adobe home in 1844, as they explain how they first met, describe their Mexican-era wedding, and share what life was like on a cattle ranch in the mid-19th century. Guests will also encounter Jotham & Margaret Bixby, second owners of the Rancho, as they reminisce about their courtship during the Civil War and move to Southern California; and John & Susan Bixby, who married in the Rancho’s parlor after a secret courtship that took place in the early 1870s.

Stepping into the twentieth century, guests will be introduced to Manuel & Concepcion Liera, boarders who met and married at the Rancho in the 1920s. The real-life Lieras celebrated their wedding at the Rancho in 1924 – and their 70th wedding anniversary at the site in 1994! Tours will end in the library with Llewellyn & Avis Bixby, who renovated the Rancho in 1930 and lived here during the Great Depression.

The magical evening will conclude with a reception of our own: a sumptuous dessert and live romantic music in the gardens! Tours begin every fifteen minutes between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 13, 2016.

Advance reservations for this unique living history program are required. Tickets are on sale now, just $15 per person. To make reservations, please call (562) 206-2040.

Rancho Los Cerritos is located at 4600 Virginia Road in Long Beach. Built in 1844, the adobe home and grounds echo with the rich history of Spanish, Mexican, and American California and with the families who helped transform Southern California from its ranching beginnings to a modern, urban society.

The two-story Monterey-style adobe is primarily furnished to reflect occupants and lifestyles from the 1860s-1880s. The site, a National, State and Long Beach Historic Landmark, also includes historic gardens and a research library and archives. The Rancho is operated by the Rancho Los Cerritos Foundation in private-public partnership with the City of Long Beach. For more information please call (562) 206-2040, or visit the website at www.rancholoscerritos.org and like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rancholosc

Credit: Rancho Los Cerritos Foundation.