Glen Urquhart School

Happening this week: all the fun of the Boar Cup!

POSTED BY: Alison Anholt

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The quest for the Boar Cup will begin Monday, March 8 with opening ceremonies at 2:25 in Braemar.  The 6th, 7th and 8th grades will compete in over 30 different events during the course of the week in order to declare themselves Boar Cup Champions 2010.  The events will take place during a special Boar Cup assembly each day (2:25 – 3:55), during recess, sports time and also at the Boar Ball which takes place on Thursday from 4:00 – 6:00.  The Boar Ball is not a required event although many events take place at this time, including the presentation of the class mural, the always-popular Lip Sync contest and finally the awarding of the Boar Cup to the champion class.  The students have spent this week signing up for the different events and planning their strategy.   This is the 11th annual Boar Cup and it looks as though each class has the spirit and energy to do very well.

We will do our best to have all events on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday end by 4:00 so that all students are out for dismissal.  However, sometimes a game, contest or event may run a little late so please be patient in carpool or just come a few minutes later.  The Boar Ball on Thursday will run until 6:00, all are invited to come in and watch.

GUS Students Win Prestigious Art Awards

POSTED BY: Alison Anholt

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Six GUS students were awarded Gold and Silver Keys at the 55th Boston Globe Scholastic Art Awards annual competition this year. More than 3,500 Massachusetts students in grades 7 through 12 entered the competition. An estimated 100,000 submissions are made to the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards nationwide. At both the regional and national levels, entries are blind judged by an esteemed jury of professional artists and writers ranging from fine and multimedia artists to poets and novelists. The competition’s most prominent prize, the Gold Key, was awarded to 150 students. There were also 291 Silver Keys and 459 Honorable Mentions. Student winners from Massachusetts were hosted to a dinner and awards ceremony on Sunday, February 14, 2010, and the art and writing will be exhibited publicly in the Transportation Building in Boston from February 1–March 19, 2010.

The students competed for awards in twelve different categories: animation, ceramics and glass, computer art, design, digital imagery, drawing, mixed media, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and video and film.  Some of the winning entries can be seen at the boston.com website.

GUS Gold Key Awardee: Phoebe Weissblum
Silver Key Awardees:  Alex Demarjian, Jacob Fucci, Ian Malabre, Jorge Piccole, and Elliot Thomas
Honorable Mention: Kate Miller

Valentine concert warms the hearts of young and old

POSTED BY: Alison Anholt

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The musical talents of GUS’s fourth and fifth graders were appreciated by people aged from 4 to 90 during the latest in what may become an annual Valentine’s Day event.  Led by our wonderfully talented music director Patty Clark,  fourth and fifth graders boarded a school bus and headed first to the Harborlight Nursery School in Beverly and then to the Ledgewood Rehabilitation Center at Beverly Hospital to perform songs with a central theme of love. The program included classics by Elvis, the Beatles, traditional songs such as Scarborough Fair, Skiddermarink, You Are My Sunshine, A Bushel and a Peck, and more. The chorus was augmented by lively tap dancing, several solos were performed, and a fourth grade guitarist accompanied the group. Patients at Ledgewood were clearly moved by the performance, and there was not a dry eye in the house during the chorus’ heart felt rendering of Love Me Tender, Love Me Dear.

Open Mike raises over $1800 for Honduras and Appalachia

POSTED BY: Alison Anholt

The GUS community was treated to a wonderful evening of home grown entertainment on Friday night, as student and and faculty performers entertained a large crowd for almost three hours with music ranging from classical through jazz to rock and roll. New to the open mike this year was a showing of original animations by eighth graders. Homemade vegetarian chili and pizza were for sale, and wonderful artwork by the eighth graders graced the walls of the Nance Assembly Room where the event was held. The benefit was held to raise funds for housing repair programs in rural Virginia, where eighth grade students will be traveling in February, and for Rancho Santa Fe orphanage in Honduras, where we have served in previous years, but are prevented this year due to political unrest.

During the week long visit to Appalachia, students will be spending the day reconstructing low-income people’s homes.  Some evening activities will include listening to an ex-coal miner, participating in a town hall dance and blue grass concert, listening to local music at a potluck, and meeting with an African-American woman who will talk about race in Appalachia.  The students will also spend a day at the local public school, shadowing eighth grade students and doing some service work.

To see more about the organizations we will be serving in February, go to
http://www.binns-counts.org/bc/housing.htm
http://www.stjosephmantua.com/appalachian.html

The students staying local are going to work at Beverly Bootstraps and Turtle Creek senior home.

Watch this space for student blogs and photos of their experiences in Appalachia and Beverly during Work Week.

Arts Block Evening a Great Success

POSTED BY: Alison Anholt

Parents, friends, siblings, and faculty filled the Nance Assembly Room to view the artwork created by the eighth grade since the beginning of the fall,  to listen to live music, enjoy refreshments provided by the hard working committee, and to hear presentations by remarkably articulate and knowledgeable eighth graders. They gave fascinating insights into the lives and creative inspiration of the  artists who inspired their unique shirt project creations. The talks covered a wide range of genres and moods, from the transformational architecture of Frank Gehry, through William Wegman’s humorous dog tableaux, to the photography of Dawoud Bey and Jerry Uelsmann. A first this year was the inclusion of a YouTube video of inflatable street sculpture by Joshua Allen Harris.

After the art presentations, the audience moved to Braemar for the dance portion of the evening. All students at GUS have an opportunity to express their creativity through dance, and to try their hand at choreography, and the energy and expressiveness of the dances by this grade were exceptional. This year, Donna Krohn invited a professional choreographer, Ivan Korn, to work with the eighth graders, and two dances choreographed by him were presented; “Survival of the Fittest” with music by the Cirque du Soleil, and “Down the Road”, with music by Autoslave. A highlight of the evening was a tribute to Michael Jackson by the “Mini Michaels”, complete with a moonwalk.

To view the shirt project, go to the Upper School Gallery.

Special thanks for all the creativity and hard work that went into Arts Block 2010 are due to our wonderful teachers Dawn Southworth and Donna Krohn; the Parent Committee: Lise Breen (chair,) Marie Tobin, Katie Duffy, Dana Hooper, Kathy Goeben, and Jill Schlanger; Bill Breen, Haig & Jessica Demarjian, John Duffy, Cathy Fonzo, Brad Chisholm, Susan Emerson, Alison Anholt, Carolyn Fitzpatrick, Elaine Collupy, Walter Riley, Dana Salvo, Kelly Schwenkmeyer; and to others who donated time and energy to ensure the success of this unique event.

New exhibit by Kathleen Volp in Johnson Gallery

POSTED BY: Alison Anholt

GUS is pleased to announce the installation of an exhibition by artist Kathleen Volp. Please visit the Glen Urquhart School’s Johnson Gallery (Lower School Building), to view Ms. Volp’s mixed media assemblages and paintings.

Kathleen Volp blends the actual with the abstract. Her mixed media pieces integrate memory and story and are set within pattern and a sense of place. Her work is painted, cobbled, shaped and nailed. Her paintings are richly textured with multiple layers and often include letters and text scrawled into the picture plane.

Volp’s paintings allow for multiple interpretations. Her surfaces are worked and reworked with one layer wandering into the next, creating rich associations and metaphors of our shared existence.

Kathleen received her BA from SUNY/ Empire State College, New York, NY, BA; and later attended Minneapolis College of Art and Design. An educator, Kathleen has taught at the Decordova Museum School, New Art Center in Newton, and the Concord, MA Public Schools. Volp has shown at the Revolving Museum, Concord Art Association, New Art Center, and Artspace, Maynard, and lives in Concord, MA.

The exhibition by Kathleen Volp will run until Spring break.

Glen Urquhart School is located at 74 Hale Street, Beverly Farms, MA.

Gallery hours are Mon-Fri, 9 AM – 4 PM. For information call 978-927-1064.

NOTE: 25% of sales benefit the GUS Scholarship Fund

For information contact Dawn at: dsouthworth@gus.org

Japanese drumming thrills audience

POSTED BY: Alison Anholt

Rhythmically tapping feet and hands and great shouts were heard from the audience as Odaiko New England gave a demonstration of Japanese taiko drumming at a recent assembly.  In pantomime, the actors showed how the drum was a vital means of communication in many aspects of life in early Japan, from invoking the rain god, planting rice, to warfare.
“The sounds of the taiko are infused into various aspects of daily life. From Shinto and Buddhist rituals, to celebratory festivals, the taiko is said to be the voice and spirit of the Japanese. Its rhythms reflect the sounds of nature, the changing of the seasons, Mother’s heartbeat. The sound of the taiko has an irresistible draw that summons people to seek out its source. The voice of the taiko is palpable, its language is universal. It speaks across boundaries of race, class, culture, and religion, and appeals to people of all ages and gender.”
The aim of Oidako New England is to make taiko a familiar art form to American audiences, and thereby encourage a greater appreciation and understanding of Asian American cultures. We believe the taiko has the power to bring people together in harmony and community.

Open House coming up on Jan. 21st.

POSTED BY: Alison Anholt

Our winter Open House is coming up! Join us on Thursday, January 21st from 9–11 a.m. Spend the morning observing classes and speaking with current parents, teachers, and administrators. There will be information meetings which offer an opportunity to ask questions. We also offer individual tours weekday mornings. Snow date is Friday, January 22nd. Please tell your friends!

Solstice Celebration Sparkles in the Darkness

POSTED BY: Alison Anholt

New life was breathed into a tradition with ancient roots as GUS students and faculty celebrated Solstice on Friday,  the last day of the school term. Solstice has been Glen Urquhart’s traditional holiday celebration since the inception of the school. It is a perfect, non-sectarian theme in which to acknowledge other faiths but to celebrate the core event of the season which all people have observed since ancient times, the shortest day of the year and the anticipation of the return of longer days. Fifth grade students with their kindergarten partners led the ceremony, accompanied by David Coffin playing solo recorder, bearing candle lights through the dark hall to symbolize the imminent return of the sun to the world. Songs from a variety of cultures and religions were performed, including an original song, “Solstice is Here” composed by student Linnea Coffin, which was sung by the seventh grade and the faculty chorus, and “Bayberry, Bittersweet” an original song by science teacher Mary Ellen St. George, sung by the sixth grade. The event concluded with a reading by Mr. Nance of “The Shortest Day” by Susan Cooper.

The ceremony was held in Braemar under floating snowflakes, which have a special significance at this event since they are the symbol of an important drive to raise funds for Beverly Bootstraps. Students and parents purchase snowflakes in the name of faculty and staff whom they wish to honor, and the proceeds are donated to Bootstraps. This year a check for over $7,900 was presented to Kim Sammons, a Glen Urquhart parent and frequent volunteer at Bootstraps.

Video CDs of the event will be available for $3 at the front desk when classes resume on January 4.

The Eighth Grade Arts Block Evening is Coming!

POSTED BY: Alison Anholt

The 8th Grade Arts Block Evening is a tradition for all students in their last year at Glen Urquhart.  It is a time for the students to celebrate their creative talents in the visual arts and dance.  The event includes an artist’s reception with live music, gallery, and dance performances.  Mark your calendars for 5:45–8:30 p.m. on Thursday, January 28th with a snow date on Friday, January 29th.

Students display their work from this year’s art classes and selected pieces from previous years.  They will also perform their own choreographed dances and a whole group dance produced by our guest choreographer, Ivan Korn.

We will need numerous parent volunteers to set up, take down, provide food, etc.  The core committee for the art show is Lise Breen, Katie Duffy, Kathy Goeben, Dana Hooper, and Marie Tobin.  If you are interested in helping, please email Dana Hooper dana.hooper@comcast.net. Over the next several weeks, each of us will solicit volunteers for various tasks as needed.

Our first request: Anyone interested in making several pedestals of varying heights and sizes?  These simple cubes are needed for displaying sculpture. This is a great family project where you can use your woodshop to make a permanent contribution to GUS.  Please contact Lise Breen lbreen@billbreen.net if you would like to help.