Edelweiss by Teacup10

Teacup10 - Edelweiss

Teacup10

Mar 29, 2025 05:48pm

ROUND TWO "EDELWEISS". ANNIVERSARY <img src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0249/4508/files/alpine-star-g7a50afacf_1920_600x600-min_480x480.jpg?v=1703874245" alt="edelweiss a flower that grows in the alps"> I couldn't let March 2025 go by without doing a song from 'The Sound of Music" because the film just had it's 60th anniversary. Talk about making me feel OLD. I was in elementary school and now I'm a grandmother. There are only a few of the primary actors still living. Only 5 of the children are still with us, the actor that played Rolf, and Julie Andrews, who turns 90 this year. The song "Edelweiss" is about a small white flower that mainly grows high up in the Alps. During filming the scene at the end of the show, extras were asked to sing it. Since it's a Rodgers and Hammerstein song, and not the Austrian national song, they didn't know it and had to be taught the music and lyrics before it could go on filming. The song is also the last song that Rodgers and Hammerstein composed together. Hammerstein died of cancer very soon after it was written. The film wasn't a huge hit at first and critics were divided about it. But, the public made it a blockbuster soon after it premiered. People made it the long lasting hit that it is today by going to see it many times. One woman in England was documented as seeing it over 900 times. In a round about way, "The Sound of Music" affected my life significantly. In music class, we had a unit on musical theatre. Our end of the unit test was to recreate a scene from a musical. I'd just seen the film for the first time and chose to sing the title song in costume. Afterwards, the teachers I had asked the principal to put me in music the rest of the year instead of going into the rotation of art, music, and homemaking. He couldn't change the curriculum for one student but suggested my parents put me in voice lessons outside of school. I had that voice teacher all through school until I left for college. Having an outlet that I absolutely loved shaped the rest of my schooling. I had been very shy which changed when I gained more confidence. It's amazing what small things can completely change the course of someone's life. I even met Don on the first day of college. We were both voice majors who were waiting at the classroom door for the professor to unlock the door.