MUSIC AND DRAMA

The music program at The Philadelphia School gives students the tools to understand and critically appreciate a variety of musical genres. It is based on the belief that all children can create and perform music. Opportunities to sing, play musical instruments, and compose and arrange music abound.

In addition to learning developmentally appropriate music theory, students explore concepts such as rhythm, pitch, and harmony through projects relating to classroom themes. Projects have included film scoring for the Junior Unit theme of space exploration, Gregorian chant composition for the Middle School study of the Middle Ages, and Kabuki presentations on Orff instruments for the Primary Unit's Japan theme.

Music classes meet twice a week. In addition, Primary and Junior Unit choruses each meet once a week, and the Middle School chorus twice. Choral concerts have featured excerpts from Orff's Carmina Burana, masses from the 12th through 15th centuries, slave spirituals, and excerpts from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.

Students have opportunities to express themselves through role-playing activities, storytelling, and play performances. Plays have included Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Nine Scenes from the Life of a Colonial Mouse, A Play Called Noah's Flood, The Revenge of the Space Pandas, Freedom Train, Journey to Galapagos, and Peter Pan. Every three years the Middle School stages a Shakespeare Festival, performing several plays in a three-day period. This year's festival featured Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Taming of the Shrew.

Middle School students can audition for the a cappella group Measure for Measure, whose repertoire is chosen and often arranged by students. The group has performed at the University of Pennsylvania, at Liberty Place, at assisted care facilities for the elderly, and at neighborhood fairs.

The After School Music Program offers private lessons in cello, drums, flute, guitar, piano, recorder, trumpet, violin, and voice. Instrumental ensemble opportunities are often available for percussion, flute, recorder, and strings.

"Art and music classes were taught with so much joy that it was impossible not to get excited about painting my own Dr. Seuss machine, making a Grecian urn out of clay, or appearing as the Admiral in HMS Pinafore."

- Gabriel Tames '93, B.S., Harvard '01, Stanford Law School '04