Educate the whole child and you teach lessons that last a whole lifetime.
In all grades, our school’s emphasis on interdisciplinary study includes the performing arts.
Music
Glen Urquhart values the special joy of making music together and strives to inspire students to become lifelong music-makers. All students become active musicians who sing, play the recorder, and participate in instrumental and choral ensembles; literate musicians who understand, read, and write the written language of music; listening musicians who discern, understand, and respond to the music they hear; and world musicians who understand and appreciate music and the role of music in our own and other cultures.
Special music ensembles include the GUS Chorus, in which all 4th and 5th grade students participate, and the GUS Band, an elective before-school activity, open to students, grades 5-8. A Beginner Band prepares 4th Graders to participate the following year. In the GUS Chorus, all fourth and fifth graders: perform vocal warm-ups, follow a choral score, and follow a conductor; develop and perform a repertoire of rounds, partner songs, and songs with simple harmonies; learn and perform arrangements of several spirituals and explore their historical backgrounds.
Drama
Our formal drama program links the elements of dance and drama. Students see the commonality between the two art forms and use what they have learned in dance to develop their theater skills. Use of the imagination is stressed while developing characterization, projection and diction, confidence and concentration. Performance is the focus of the seventh and eighth grades with seventh graders producing both comedic and serious works. Additionally, students are given the benefit of learning how to direct their own work when working on scripts. Shakespeare and poetry are often included and coordinated with the language arts department. Eighth graders have produced Guys and Dolls; Aladdin; Bye, Bye Birdie; and Fiddler on the Roof.