2 minute read
Arts
BISHOP ROBERT BARRON
ARTS
The arts enhance education because they can help tell our stories visually, musically, and through beautiful images. At NDP, we offer a variety of successful arts programs to allow our students to increase their intellect by exploring instrumental music, dance, drama, choir, painting, drawing, pottery, photography and video production.
In 2019-20, under the guidance of new drama director Cecilia Henrich, The NDP Players garnered seven nominations for ASU Gammage High School Musical Theatre Awards for their production of Into The Woods including best lead male Bennett Curran, best lead female Olivia LaPorte, best supporting male Jacob Fevurly, best supporting female Kendall Luther, best vocalist Ruby Purcell, best dance ensemble, and best lighting team. The NDP players also produced a new play called Not Your Average Zombie Apocalypse by Richard Gremel, who attended the show and spoke about playwriting to our student actors and audience members.
With Mr. Phillip Hemmo’s direction, our guitar orchestra earned a superior rating at the Arizona Solo & Ensemble Competition, and they premiered a new composition by Canadian composer Luv Levesque called Pulsar, dedicated to Hemmo and the NDP Guitar Orchestra.
In addition to these accomplishments, the guitar orchestra was the featured performance at the Arizona Educators Conference.
Mr. Hemmo piloted an innovative program called Guitar to You, where he instructs music educators at the elementary school-level on how to teach classical guitar so that when their students enter high school, they are more advanced in their musical skills. He currently has five schools signed up for Guitar to You.
Judges at the Northern Arizona University Jazz Festival enjoyed the sound of our jazz ensemble who earned an excellent rating at the annual showcase. Individual awards were given to Brooke Pauley for vocals and guitar, and Lars Nordhagen for trumpet.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Just ask our choir director, Mrs. Deanna Hudson, who had three students accepted into Carnegie Hall’s Honors Performance in New York last year. They were Ashton Rains, Ruby Purcell and Frankie Keffer. Hudson was also chosen from a worldwide pool of music educators to teach at the Honors Performance event at Carnegie Hall. This was a first for Notre Dame Prep.
All of our performing and visual arts students were showcased around the Diocese of Phoenix, at hospitals and at our own Winter Fine Arts Festival on campus. Soon their work will be displayed and performed in the new St. Catherine of Bologna Performing Arts Center opening in early 2021.
