Music

The music program, grounded in the Orff approach, takes place in an atmosphere where joy, play, and exploration lead naturally to the pleasure of making music in collaboration with others.

Music learning happens through watching, listening, imitating and responding. This challenges the students to be active, focused musicians, and to develop their musical ears, reflexes, and memories.

The elementary years focus on learning songs, encouraging creativity in games and dances, singing in tune, and understanding the concepts of beat and rhythm. Students perform, read and write music, and explore composition. Drums, hand percussion, boom whackers, bells, Orff instruments, and recorders are used throughout the grades to practice musical concepts. Kindergarten through fourth grade students will also be part of larger ensemble classes where they will practice performing as a group and with multiple parts. Classroom curriculum is integrated whenever possible, embracing the music and dance of cultures around the world and teaching those artistic traditions not as fixed artifacts but as fresh, evolving expressions of human creativity.

In middle school, students are exposed to all of the primary parts of musical structure and convention, from notation and tablature, to singing and playing instruments. In fifth grade, students learn to play ukuleles and shift their focus more to contemporary music. Beginning in sixth grade, students learn to play the guitar and explore body rhythm, pattern development, rhythm cycles, and drumming styles from around the world.

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