The Stuck at the Airport music appreciation department spent some time scrolling through the charming and colorful illustrations in the aeronautical sheet music collection in the library of the Smithsonian Institution.
Piano lessons may be in order. But here are some of our favorites songs titles and images.
Airports are really lonely and miss serving as the front doors to their cities.
So they’re working hard to stay in touch with their communities with updates on their Covid-19 responses, of course, but also with educational and cultural activities.
Case in point: 23 North American airports are joining together on Wednesday, May 6 to host the JetStream Music Festival.
The online event celebrates local music from each of the host cities and kicks off at 5 p.m. CST on May 6 on each of the participating airports’ Facebook Live.
Each airport will feature a 10-minute set from a local musician.
Each musician will have a virtual tip jar so you can contribute during the stream.
As we head into the Labor Day holiday, here are some travel tidibts for you.
Free Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi on Labor Day
Here’s a nice Labor Day perk for anyone flying on a Gogo-equipped domestic flight:
On Monday, Sept 3, you can get 30 minutes of free Wi-Fi, courtesy of T-Mobile. The off is good even if you’re a Verizon or AT&T customer. (T-Mobile customers get a free hour, as always; a great perk!)
Get more details about the free Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi offer from T-Mobile for Labor Day.
Heathrow Airport seeking your vacation sounds
Pictures from vacations help us remember a great adventure, but so do sounds.
Studies show that the same part of the brain in charge of processing the senses is also responsible for storing emotional memories. That means sounds, noises and songs you might hear on your trips will be part of travel memories that will be able to transport you back in time.
Think: waves lapping on the beach; the “Mind the Gap” announcement on the London Tube; and that street busker you stopped to listen to in Paris.
Heathrow Airport has decided to capture the essence of great vacations by gathering audio from travelers and commissioning a composer to create a collection of travel mood music and vacation sounds.
Heathrow says submissions sent in by the public will be turned into a “captivating and immersive soundscape” by British Academy Award-winning composer and sound artist Nick Ryan.
“We all record holiday memories with pictures, yet listening to the sound of a voice or a place can trigger far more intense emotions than a photograph on a phone,” Ryan said in a statement.
Travelers are invited to submit their holiday sounds over the next four months as an mp4 clip at soundescapes@heathrow.com.
Ryan will collection the audio, do this thing with it and release the inaugural Sound Escapes audio installment in January 2019.
What vacation sounds will you send in?
Annie, from Annie & Kate, performing on piano for Kid Band Week, 2015.
Each week, the Augstin Bergstrom International Airport presents 21 live music performances in 5 venues throughout the airport. But next week there’s something even more special:
This is the 10th annual Kid Band week. It runs July 18 – 22, 2016 (Monday – Friday) and features performers ranging in age from 14 to 18.
These aren’t thrown-together kiddie bands; these are top notch performers (it’s Austin, after all) who just happen to be young.
Here’s the line up:
All performances run from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the Asleep at the Wheel Stage, located near Gate 10.
Monday, July 18 – Grace London (Singer, songwriter, guitar player, foot stomper. Age 16): .
Tuesday, July 19 – Annie & Kate (Classic tunes, ages 17):
Wednesday, July 20 – Joe Camp All Stars (Jazz combo group, ages 16 – 18);
Thursday, July 21 – Tiarra Girls (All-sister girl band, ages 14 – 17):
Friday, July 22 – Dillon Havins Band (Americana, Alternative Rock band, ages 16 – 18).
If you’re heading to Austin, be sure to check these bands out. Next time through, you may have to pay a lot more than nothing to see them.
Attendees at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia later this month will be welcomed at Philadelphia International Airport with a soundtrack featuring Philadelphia-made hits and an exhibition of political pins.
The soundtrack, playing now, features the “Sound of Philadelphia,” a series of songs from Philadelphia’s Grammy award-winning producers and songwriters Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff that became hits for artists such as Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass, the O’Jays Patti LaBelle, the Stylistics and many others.
Gamble and Huff’s well-known songs being heard on the audio system throughout the terminals include I Love Music by the O’Jays, The Love I Lost and If You Don’t Know Me By Now by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Me and Mrs. Jones by Billy Paul, Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now by McFadden and Whitehead, Rubberband Man by the Spinners, and Don’t Leave Me This Way by Thelma Houston.
The exhibition of political pins – post-security in Terminal B – is from the collection of Philadelphian Alfio J. Brindisi, who has been collecting American political memorabilia for nearly 50 years.