Music instructor Diane Downs had no concept her music class college students would find yourself performing for Ozzy Osbourne, or that Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin would reward their cowl of “Kashmir” on Fb, saying “it’s too good to not share.”
However the Louisville Leopard Percussionists, a music group made up of second- to Twelfth-graders started in humbler circumstances at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary College in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1993, Downs was looking a college closet for bulletin board paper however discovered a closetful of devices as a substitute. So, she requested her college students in the event that they wished to do a live performance.
“You understand, being second- and third-graders, they’re fearless,” she stated. “So that they had been simply, ‘Let’s do that!”
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First, they performed at a PTA assembly after which at a nursing dwelling. Ms Downs stated the invites to carry out stored coming, main them to play throughout Louisville, after which throughout the nation.
In 2003, the group turned a non-profit group, providing the Leopard expertise to extra children past King Elementary. Three years later, HBO documented the group’s journey to New York Metropolis to open for the Chick Corea Trio within the movie The Leopards Take Manhattan.
However what actually skyrocketed the Leopards to stardom was when a YouTube video of them taking part in Ozzy Osbourne’s Loopy Practice went viral.
“Out of the blue, we obtained a test from Ozzy Osbourne to assist help our group,” Downs stated.
A pair years later, they had been invited to seem on the fact present Ozzy and Jack’s World Detour.
“A few of the children didn’t know who he was, so we needed to do some training, and so they know who he’s now,” she added.
The group’s cowl of Led Zeppelin later additionally went viral on YouTube. Downs stated the views went from 6,000 to six million views in per week. The scholars did interviews with media shops everywhere in the world.
Whereas the scholars don’t actually perceive the affect that the group had of their lives once they had been youthful, Downs stated, “I’ve had alumni come again to me and simply say, ‘I can’t consider I did that once I was a child… I can’t consider that occurred to me.”
