On April 9 the arts department held the second annual Arts Festival in the main gym from 5:30-8:00 p.m. The festival consisted of the band, choir, theater, and pieces featured from classes such as 3d printing, drawing, and more.
The art galleries were filled with drawings and paintings, ceramics, and structures such as the Eiffel Tower made out of popsicle sticks. The art department also showed off a slideshow of pictures from the photography class. Some of the paintings that were most glanced at were skeletons, comic panels, apples, and caricatures of real people.
The theater department showed off a few scenes from their previous show “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and their new show “The Miser”. Some of the performers were a part of the choir department and the band department as well.
The band consisted of a few groups from solo and ensemble, a band competition that rates the performers on their playing and presentation and played a few songs from said competition. When asked about the festival Cordell Zehr, one of the band directors said, “It definitely gets people more exposed to the visual arts side of our school because obviously we have concerts, theater has their own productions, choir has their own concerts. So there are plenty of opportunities for the community to come out and see us, but the visual arts don’t have as many avenues. So this is a good way to get more people into the door, even if they came just to watch the band, choir, theater, or art. They can experience all the different facets of our program and maybe see something and enjoy something that they didn’t expect to see.”
The choir department had four students perform one song each. Senior Emily Goodwin performed “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” from “Jesus Christ Superstar”.
D’Meris Kelly (Senior) performed “Stars” from “Les Miserables”.
Jayleon Hensley (Junior) performed “Movin’ Too Fast” from “The Last Five Years”.
Core Chandler (Junior) performer “A New Life” from “Jekyll & Hyde”.
And De’Jeria Pullin (Junior) performed “Home” from “The Wiz”. Each piece was performed with such lovely voices and gestures to the point most of the audience was standing in awe of these students.
After the choir department performed their respective pieces, the principal Alan Landes had every student who was a part of each arts department and had a speech on how the arts are an important part of the school system and on the lives of students everywhere. Landes emphasized how proud he is of each department and started to announce the winners for each division of the art category.
Most of the students who won a reward did not show up for the ceremony. However the only student who did walk up to receive her certificate for first place in ceramics was junior Annabelle Owens. The Arts festival showed off plenty of talent from freshman to seniors, singers to performers of the stage, trumpet players to tuba. She was right when she said, “I’m very confident that it [the arts festival] will go well.”
