The Official Blog of Bobs & LoLo

After a lengthy red-eye flight across the country, we arrived for our first visit to scenic St. John’s, NL!

First impressions:

1. Cold – snow flurries & biting wind all day!
2. Beautiful – love the historic architecture, colourful row houses and coastal views!
3. Tasty – fresh seafood and yummy local eats have been a hit with our entire group!
4. Friendly – the people are AMAZING!

We started the ‘work’ side of our trip with a special performance at Larkhall Academy. Nearly 350 elementary students and staff celebrated a $10,000 MusiCounts instrument grant for the school’s music program, and we were thrilled to be invited to share a few songs as part of the festivities.

MusiCounts, Canada’s music education charity associated with The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) is helping to keep music alive in schools across Canada. Since 1997, over $3 and a half million has been donated impacting 214 post-secondary music program graduates and over 250,000 individual students, their schools and communities, from coast to coast. It was a treat to meet Larkhall music teacher, Susan Lee and some of her students at the event!

Tomorrow we will be taking in a little sightseeing (weather permitting – did we mention it’s snowing here?!) and heading to our first official JUNO reception at The Rooms. We’re also really looking forward to meeting some of the other Children’s Album of the Year nominees on Saturday morning at the Kids’ Jam for Janeway concert. We’ll be sure to continue sharing stories throughout the rest of our trip. Please feel free to also follow us on Twitter or Facebook for regular daily updates!

Please send warm, sunshine-y comments only…:)

Bobs & LoLo

Celebrations beginning in Newfoundland this week will mark the 39th anniversary of the JUNO Awards and a new career milestone for independent children’s entertainers and educators, Bobs & LoLo.

Bobs & LoLo are honoured to be nominated for 2010 Children’s Album of the Year. The award for this category will be presented at a gala dinner event in St. John’s, NL on Saturday, April 17th.

Bobs & LoLo will be travelling across the country from Vancouver, BC to attend the gala and share in a number of the JUNO Award festivities including an opportunity to walk the red carpet prior to the April 18th CTV broadcast event!

Bobs & LoLo will personally be posting stories and photos from their 2010 JUNO adventures on their blog throughout the week. You can also follow them on Facebook and Twitter for daily updates.

In addition, Bobs & LoLo are looking forward to sharing some of their music and programming during JUNO Week at two special events created specifically for children and families.

April 15, 2010 - MusiCounts Presentation

Over 350 elementary students from Larkhall Academy will celebrate a $10,000 MusiCounts instrument grant for the school’s music program with a performance by 2010 JUNO Award nominated children’s performers, Bobs & LoLo.
 
MusiCounts, Canada’s music education charity associated with The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS), is helping to keep music alive in schools across Canada. MusiCounts includes Band Aid musical instrument grants, the MusiCounts Teacher of the Year Award, Scholarships and other initiatives. Since 1997, over $3 and a half million has been donated impacting 214 post-secondary music program graduates and over 250,000 individual students, their schools and communities, from coast to coast.
 
Bobs & LoLo are thrilled to kick-off their visit to St. John’s with a special performance for students who will directly benefit from these funds.

April 17, 2010 - Kids’ Jam for Janeway
 
Bobs & LoLo, Charlie Hope, The Bee’s Knees and The Kerplunks, all 2010 JUNO Award nominees for Children’s Album of the Year, will perform at Kids’ Jam for Janeway, a free concert to benefit the Janeway Children’s Health and Rehabilitation Centre. The concert is sponsored by Kids Music Connection, an initiative to support music and the arts in the lives of children.

The Janeway Children’s Health and Rehabilitation Centre is Newfoundland and Labrador’s only hospital specializing in pediatric health care and serves thousands of children and families each year.

For more information about the event and free advance ticket reservations, please visit www.kidsjam.ca.
 

It seems crazy that only one week has passed since we received news of our 2010 Juno nomination. Thank you for all of the congratulatory emails, tweets, blog comments and Facebook messages. Your encouragement and support means a lot to us!

In our last post, we mentioned our excitement about travelling across the country to share in the Juno festivities. Against our rather conservative fiscal judgment, we booked the trip to St. John’s and splurged on guest tickets to the award events for our hubbies. As we started to swallow the price tag of our new Juno nominee status, we also received an email inquiry from a representative with MusiCounts – a non-profit organization dedicated to keeping music alive in schools across Canada - asking if we would consider flying to St. John’s early to do a show for a school-aged audience prior to the Juno weekend. Were we interested? Of course!

Then reality set in. As we started looking at flight change fees plus two more nights of accommodation, the total costs of the trip seemed to be getting more and more out of reach. Could we really afford this? Could we afford not to? Friends kept telling us “it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity”…although no one was offering to pick up our VISA bill.

Rather than sit and dwell on it, we went out on a limb and sent a tweet to WestJet.

It read: Just changed flights to arrive at the Junos early to do a kids’ charity event and the travel costs are CRAZY! @westjet we need your help!

Imagine our shock when less than 2 hours later a representative from WestJet contacted us to ask for more information. By the end of that same day, WestJet had officialy offered to subsidize our flight change fees and waive the difference in the fares to fly out early (we got a sweet seat sale on our first booking). Here is a snippet of an email we received from the airline…

“As an organization we are very supportive of children and make flight donations to organizations that are focused on children’s health and wellness. While music isn’t directly related to children’s healthcare, it definitely affects their happiness and is an important part of their wellness. Since you are traveling to St John’s to donate your time for an event that will benefit children and music, we would be happy to reverse the change fees for your new flight.”
 

We heart WestJet. St. John’s here we come!

Bobs & Lolo

We are thrilled to announce that Action Packed, our most recent album release has received a 2010 Juno nomination!

Following on the heels of a 2009 Parents’ Choice Gold Award - essentially the Grammy’s of the kids’ music world – and a 2009 Western Canadian Music Award, we are overwhelmed and absolutely thrilled with the ongoing national and international attention for our third album. Warm thanks and huge cyber hugs to all of our fans, friends and family for the ongoing support of our musical adventures! This latest accolade is truly a mega highlight!

Action Packed features 12 original songs such as The Right Track, Snappy Snacks and Friends. The album is geared at connecting children to behaviours that positively impact the world around them. Using kid-friendly analogies like trains, superheroes, adventure stories and more the songs address themes such as literacy, health, teamwork and friendship.

The album was produced, arranged & recorded by Mario Vaira at Five Fathom Studios, with drums recorded by Ryan Stewart at WineCellar Music Studios and the tracks mastered at Suite Sound Labs - all of whom are located in Vancouver, BC.

For a full listing of 2010 Juno nominees, please click here.

The Juno Awards weekend will be hosted in St. John’s, NL on April 16-18. We’ve decided to fly across the country with our other halves (Mario and Kavie) to fully embrace what is sure to be a memorable and fabulous celebration of Canadian music. This might even give us an opportunity to finally do a show or two on the east coast!?

If any local BC families would like to celebrate with us this weekend, please join us in Burnaby on Saturday, March 6 for a special free family performance. Full details can be found on our events calendar.
 
Woohoo!!

Bobs & Lolo