The emphasis of this group is rehearsal and performance of high quality choral music. Each student will develop personal musicianship, vocal skills, and a sense for working together as an ensemble.

In Foundations of Music Theory, students learn to analyze and sing examples of music notation from the standard repertoire and write your own melodies with your new-found skills.

In Foundations of Music History/Appreciation, students investigate how music evolved through the last millennium into the music we enjoy today. Students explore an evolution of music history and its parallels and application to current musical styles

In Intermediate Music Theory/History, students expand basic music theory knowledge to include major and minor scales, intervals, counterpoint, and traditional melody and harmony. Students analyze these concepts via historical music examples and discuss their usage within the music history spectrum. Students compose their own 2, 3 and 4 voice pieces.

AP/Honors Music Theory is a full-year course of college-level music theory, which includes analysis, composition, dictation, ear training and sight singing.

The Stuart Instrumental Ensemble for strings, winds and brass, is conducted by the Westminster Conservatory of Music at no charge to students in Middle and Upper School. The Ensemble will rehearse on Wednesdays from 3:30 to 5:00 pm in the Music Library in Cor Unum at Stuart. Students must be able to commit to a weekly rehearsal schedule and are strongly encouraged to take lessons from a private teacher.

The Westminster Conservatory of Music also offers music classes after school for students in Kindergarten through Grade 12 at our brother school, Princeton Academy of the Sacred Heart.

Unity and variety are introduced as principles of design with emphasis on color, shape, contrast and details. All elements and principles of art are committed to memory. Written and oral critiques reach maturity as the language of art is implemented through two and three- dimensional projects incorporating perspective and advanced color mixing. Paper cutting with matte knives and digital editing are introduced. Special projects include Panamanian paper molas, photo-realistic self-portraits, and pop art sculptures inspired by Warhol and Oldenburg.

Project 1

The first project focuses on scale and perspective related to landscape painting. The landscape collage begins with a lesson about scale and perspective. Students choose a master landscape artist from whom to draw inspiration. Each student studies a chosen painting in a series of drawings. The final composition is a painted paper collage showing scale and overlapping to convey depth.

Concepts:perspective, horizon line, scale and overlapping
Skills: painting, drawing, cutting and gluing.
Art history: landscape and seascape painters and printmakers

Project 2

The second project is a texture sampler. Students explore various printmaking and drawing methods to capture visual textures. Each student designs a shape or unit as a template to trace on all her textures. She creates textures using rubbing, printmaking and computer generated methods. She then cuts out each texture and composes a “creative” grid while maintaining an active negative space.

Concepts: texture, grid, negative space, value, balance
Skills: printmaking, drawing, frottage, gluing, designing and composing
Art History: tessellations, mosaics, quilts, grid structures in art, modern art and graphic design

The Grade 7 project focuses on the study of one animal through various media. Students study an animal of choice through a variety of media including graphite drawing, watercolor, pastel and paper mache sculpture. They are directed to capture the gesture, proportions, textures, and colors of the chosen animal. Girls use iPads and books to find visual resources from which to study.

Concepts: gesture, color, texture, form and proportion
Skills: drawing, painting, fabricating/ construction and research
Art History: animals in art

Project 1

The first project focuses on self-portraiture through various media, understanding concepts such as proportion and sculpture.

Self-portraits
Students make a series of self-portraits using a variety of materials such as graphite, colored pencils, and watercolor crayons. Each portrait focuses on a different concept such as proportion, form, and emotional and/or symbolic color.

Concepts: proportion, form, emotional/symbolic color
Skills: drawing, painting, blending color, synthesis of idea/materials
Art History: portraits and self-portraits of artists in many cultures and in many media

Project 2

Found Object Head
Students look at what is essential to convey the idea of “head”. They then begin to gather found materials to construct a head that can be viewed 360 degrees, stand on its own, and can be read as a head by the viewer.

Concept: What is essential to make a head?
Skills: construction, gluing and synthesizing disparate materials.
Art History: assemblage, found object art, sculpture, dada art (c.1910)

Grade Five music class meets once per cycle individually and once for Chorus. The focus of the first semester is music theory, especially chords, scales, and chord progressions. The students compose their own 12 bar chord progressions, which helps them when they begin to prepare for their hand bell performance at the Veni Emmanuel Christmas Performance. Fifth and fourth grade choristers sing select pieces at performances that are age appropriate and more challenging than the unison pieces the younger students prepare.

Using their multimedia textbooks as a guide, the students listen to various instrumental ensembles, sing different songs, and play some simple percussion instruments. Each lesson is filled with theory, history, and performance references. The girls work on their own and in groups to hone their skills, compose their own rhythms and melodies, and think critically about the music.

In Music 6, we focus on a comprehensive scope of music theory, performance, and music history/appreciation. We learn these concepts by discovering and performing vocal and instrumental music from around the world.

Music Theory Concepts: rhythm, tonality, form, texture, intervals, pattern/sequences, melody, harmony, dynamics, tempo
Skills Learned: singing on pitch (solo and in ensemble), reading music on the staff
Performance Concepts: instrumental and vocal timbre, vocal range, listening and analysis, expression
Song examples: Swanee and Red River Valley (USA), El Payo and La Mariposa (Latin America), Wai Bamba (Africa), Farewell to Tarwathie (Scotland), Hava Nagila and Lo Yisa Goy (Israel), and many more.

We focus on basic guitar skills as the center of our music study. Their appreciation for music grows as they learn to play and sing international and popular songs. The girls work on their own and in pairs to carefully play each chord and rhythm accurately while simultaneously singing the melody.

We partner with Grade Eight Theater to put on a full-scale musical. The students learn to sing and act the solo and ensemble songs. Through this rehearsal process, the students learn solo and collaborative musical performance skills and gain a greater appreciation of musical theater.

Middle School Ensemble is offered as a club to all Middle School students with playing experience. Ensemble meets once per cycle as the students prepare pieces to play at both the Evensong Christmas program and Spring Concert.

Grade Six Theater includes theater vocabulary, stage movement, memorization, theater history, performance, and critique.

Grade Seven Theater analyzes and explores playwriting. This class culminates in a performance of an original class sectional play.

Collaborating with the music class, Eighth Grade Musical presents a full-scale musical each year in the fall.

Elements of art are introduced with a focus on line, color and texture in both two- dimensional and three dimensional projects. The Art History timeline begins with cave paintings with stops in ancient Mexico for ceramics, the Middle Ages for mosaics, the Renaissance for Stained Glass, and painting and drawing in the Modern Era.

Color relationships are formalized with the color wheel; primary and secondary colors as well as warm and cool colors are discovered. Line, value, shape and pattern are identified and integrated into projects. The Art History timeline includes nature paintings inspired by Henri Rousseau, assemblage sculpture, and coiled pottery.

Shape and form are added to line, color, value and texture in the identification of the elements of art. Observation of nature and the environment include still life drawing and weather paintings. The Art History timeline stops in a primal rainforest where birds and animals inhabit original landscapes. Impressionism, Cubism, and Realism are identified as Modern art styles through the study of Monet, Picasso and Homer.

Line, color, value, texture, shape and form are explored more deeply. The concept and practice of space in two dimensional and three dimensional projects is introduced along with the principles of design of balance and emphasis. Projects include the building of Medieval castles, African textile weavings, and self-portraits.

Asymmetrical and radial balance, complex patterns, proportion and movement are implemented as principles of design in two and three-dimensional projects. One-point perspective is introduced as well as digital photography. Some projects themes covered are visual symbols and contour drawing. The Art History timeline swept through ancient Mayan and Incan culture with a special mask-making project, and into the 20th century with wire mobiles inspired by Alexander Calder.

Kindergarten starts the musical process with a focus on rhythmic echoing and creation. Students participate in drum circles using various Orff instruments where they improvise rhythms within specific guidelines. Kindergartners also prepare for the Eric Carle Museum, where they set his books to music and additional holiday concerts.

Grade One begins their musical journey with the recorder. Students work from various texts to give them a well rounded approach to playing an instrument independently and collaboratively. Grade One also meets once per cycle for a class dedicated to singing and preparing for concerts.

Grade Two also continues the musical journey with recorder through independent, paired, and group practice. Grade Two begins composing melodically, a natural progression from their years of rhythmic composition.

Grade Three is the final year for students to play their recorder. The program at this level is much more rigorous than the younger years; third graders prepare to play a song at the Halloween Spooktacular Performance and a recorder accompaniment to the Lower School Veni Emmanuel Christmas Performance. Students also begin to study vocal practices in more detail at the third grade level.

Grade Four visits the Music Room twice a cycle; once as an individual class and once for Chorus, which includes the entire grade. The students are study musical genres in much more detail and complete composer research projects utilizing technological resources. Grade Four also begins playing hand bells in the second semester.

Grade Three is the first year students study theater. We begin the year with an introduction to early theatre history, a basic theatre vocabulary, a study of the stages used by ancient actors. We act during every class using pantomime and creative movement to tell stories independently and in small groups. In December the students present an “Open Class” and in February they perform a short play for the Lower School and their parents.

At the beginning of the 3rd tri-mester the third graders memorize and act out poems and nursery rhymes. Later they are introduced to the folk tales and theatre of a particular culture. They create masks in class and retell the stories to the Pre-School children.

The Fourth Grade Musical is the culmination of the Lower School Music and Drama curriculum. Preparation begins in January with auditions, rehearsals run from February through April with the performances in early May.