_________________ WANTAGH ________________
HERALD leaving it all on the dance floor
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Vol. 72 No. 6
FEBRUARY 1 - 7, 2024
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Mitchell Siegel creates art out of metal garden. After the garden’s installation and a few functioning seaMitchell Siegel of Levittown sons, Siegel wanted to create has spread his wings by com- something to decorate the bining his passion for creating space. “He came to see the garden, art with his profession as an and he told me what he did, and electrician. that’s so incredible During the sumbecause part of our m e r, Siegel garden is taking installed his first care of the earth ar t piece at his and keeping things place of worship, out of the landfill Temple B’nai and stuff like that,” Torah in Wantagh. Salem said. The piece was Siegel made his made of scrap first display piece metal — which for the garden, a would have otherroughly 10-foot tall wise been discardbutterfly sculpture ed — that he took with a surrounding from his job sites. bench. “All of the sud“It was special den this whole that it actually sculpture thing went to my temcame about, and it ple,” Siegel said. “It was something that MitCHEll SiEGEl had meaning I never realiz ed artist/electrician behind it, that it that I had in me,” was the first place I Siegel said of startput artwork that people could ing his artistic journey. Bellmore resident Susan really enjoy it.” He used a plasma cutting Salem, a garden enthusiast who turns community green spaces technique, handling a highly into gardens across Nassau heated torch to cut through County, helped Temple B’nai metal for the wings. “It is the hottest thing on the Torah transform unused nursery space into a functioning Continued on page 9
By PARKER SCHUG
pschug@liherald.com
A
Courtesy Wantagh School District
Wantagh Middle School student adrian de Chavez has become a talented violist, and has performed in venues including Madison Square garden and Barclays Center.
Young master of the strings
De Chavez has had unique musical training By CHARlES SHAW cshaw@liherald.com
A trip to a music store had a profound impact on Adrian De Chavez. Adrian, an eighth-grader and a member of the orchestra at Wantagh Middle School, remembers when he received his first pair of instruments at age 6. He walked into a music store with his father, and was surrounded by instruments of all shapes and sizes. He told his dad he needed to buy an instrument, so his father bought him a viola. Adrian said he preferred the size of the viola compared with other orchestral instruments, including the smaller violin.
“I feel like it makes a much more broader sound than a violin, and much more fun,” he said of the viola. In the years since that trip to the music store, Adrian has become a talented violist. He plays in the middle school orchestra and jazz band, and has taken part in the AllCounty Music Festival and the Long Island String Festival since fifth grade. According to Thomas Brody, who directs the middle school orchestra, Adrian’s dedication to his craft has made him a leader in the orchestra program whom other students look up to. “He brings a sense of maturity that is helping out a lot of other people in our Continued on page 4
ll of the sudden this whole sculpture thing came about, and it was something that I never realized that I had in me.