Festival of Art and Music Begins

This morning, our two school orchestras kicked off the annual Winter Festival of Art and Music with a special morning concert for the Lower School.

Our youngest musicians, members of The First Orchestra, played for the first time this year in front of a live audience. The boys, from Grades 1 – 3 performed Ode to Joy, Danny Boy, and Saint David's Alma Mater. During the course of the performance, each of the boys stood to introduce a piece or share pertinent information about the orchestra's composition and layout, providing an important public speaking opportunity--a major curricular focus of the school's program.

A brief clip of their Ode to Joy performance is included.

The First Orchestra was followed by a riveting performance by the Saint David's Philharmonic Ensemble, which provided a preview of some of the pieces they will soon be playing on the stage at Carnegie Hall in a couple of weeks: Handel's Le Rejouissance, Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins, the Russian Sailors' Dance, and the Theme from Mission Impossible. Just fantastic to hear 11-14 year olds playing such complex pieces with such enthusiasm!

The Winter Festival is a special tradition at Saint David's, which celebrates our boys' creativity and the school's focus on the aesthetic as part of a balanced pedagogy.

During the next two weeks there will be many events showcasing our boys' work in the arts. Drop by and visit. Programs are available at Reception.

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OLIVER!

This morning our fifth graders continued a great year-end tradition at Saint David's, The Fifth Grade Musical. The boys performed Oliver! and they were fantastic, providing impressive performances and demonstrating great vocal ability. They have been mastering the dialogue and musical numbers for weeks, and clearly gave it their all. Congratulations to the cast on a job well done, and to their Producers/Teachers James Hubbard and Jamie MacNeille, Director Phyllis Clark, Musical Conductor Jeff Moore, and the Parent Committee of Cynthia Chapman, Susan Kissane, Tara Neumann, Joyce Restituto, and Ann Roberts. Musical theater is alive and well at Saint David's!

Sixth Graders Meet with Dr. Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at the American Museum of Natural History

Dr. Carter Emmart with Saint David's Sixth Graders This past Friday, as part of our unique partnership with the American Museum of Natural History, sixth graders had the great honor to attend a private lecture given by Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at AMNH. Dr. Emmart told the boys about his passion for science along with an overview of the history of the Hayden Planetarium. He also gave the boys advice on how to take scientific information about the universe and compile it into an interesting and captivating show for an audience. The boys were able to see Dr. Emmart's original sketches, which helped create the Uniview program they are using to develop their presentations. The session provided our boys with an opportunity to learn how art and science come together in the planetarium, and to obtain expert advice on developing their own space shows from one of the creators of Uniview . You can learn more about Dr. Emmart's work and Univie...

Surf's Up for Horizons at Saint David's

Little can top catching a wave to beat the heat on an exceptionally hot summer's day. Yesterday, as the temperatures soared into the nineties, the Horizons at Saint David's Eighth Grade class traveled to Rockaway Beach with their teachers for surf lessons with New York's premiere surf school, Locals Surf School. The boys have been taking swimming lessons through our program since their first summer with us in 2012. At that time, they were were rising first graders, and our inaugural cohort of Horizons students. Yesterday, they were ready to go, and, as these pictures show, they had a blast while learning a new skill. This is the eighth year of Horizons at Saint David's, a six-week multi-faceted academic and cultural summer experience whose mission is to prevent summer slide in elementary school boys from low-income families. We began the program in conjunction with Saint David's 60th anniversary in 2011, as one way that Saint David's as an ins...

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