Singing the praises of national ‘Glee’ champs

Pat Arnow Leading the 4th-grade chorus in its Winter Concert is music teacher Melissa Salguero.

Pat Arnow

Music teacher Diana fox conducts the 4th- and 5th-grade chorus.

PS 48 is great! Students, parents, teachers and the YouTube-watching world at large agree, awarding the school a $50,000 prize in the national Glee Give A Note contest.

When students at PS 48 in the Bronx performed at their Winter Concert on Dec. 23, they were also celebrating their $50,000 national prize, which had been announced on Dec. 15, in the “Glee Give A Note” contest.

“I saw a commercial for the contest two weeks before the deadline,” said music teacher (and fan of the “Glee” TV show) Melissa Salguero. “You had to showcase your school with a video and discuss what you would do with the prize money.”

Together with Diana Fox — her colleague in the music department — and the school’s talented students, they came up with a rap song, which Fox videotaped. She also taped teachers and their principal discussing what they wanted to add to their music program.

Over the span of a weekend, Salguero edited 400 minutes of videotape into just under two minutes to “show how awesome and passionate the kids are about music.”

Salguero said that every PS 48 student participates in the music program, which brings together students from different classes by grade level. The chorus meets once a week, and the 5th-grade band, which just started this year, meets three times a week, Salguero said.

Although most students only meet once a week for music, “it’s amazing what we can do in that small amount of time,” Salguero said. Check out their winning video on YouTube.

The money will go toward music essentials that the school lacks — including choral risers, so you can see every student’s face — not to mention chairs and music stands for the band, and replacing musical instruments that are “beyond repair,” as Salguero shows in the video.

City-certified music teachers Salguero and Fox are funded through Education Through Music, a nonprofit which brings music teachers to schools that lack the funding for a full-fledged program.

Salguero said you can already see the impact that the music program has had on students.

“They’re singing in the halls all the time, doing the beats,” she said. “They’re so proud! That’s what they’re taking away from this win — ‘that’s my school, that’s me.’”