Norwell High School Music Department

Members of the NHS Symphonic Band’s woodwind section were happy to perform an evening of chamber music to accompany the Art Department’s annual Fine Arts Fest exhibition on Thursday, March 26th in the NHS Library. Lauren Connaughton ‘11 and Stephanie Sousa ‘09 (flute), Connor MacDonald ‘10 (clarinet) and Frank White ‘12 (baritone saxophone) joined Mr. O’Briant (horn) to perform quartet and quintet music by Mozart, Chaminade, Haydn, Mussorgsky and Beethoven.

Many thanks to Mrs. Noiseux and Mr. Papadonis for putting on such a wonderful evening each year and for the opportunity to perform!

NHS Music alum and current Berklee College student Dave Neves ‘07 will be performing with the Kyle Miles Jazz Ensemble on Sunday, April 5th at 2pm at Boston’s famed Regattabar Jazz Club.  Tickets for the performance are $20, and all proceeds will be going to support the Boston Children’s Chorus.  From the Regattabar’s event description:

The Boston Children’s Chorus is a multi-racial, multi-cultural arts organization bringing together children in grades 2-12 from Boston’s diverse racial, ethnic and socioeconomic communities to discover the power of singing together and to serve as ambassadors for their city. Through numerous performances at major local events, as well as on tour nationally and internationally, members of the Boston Children’s Chorus share their passion for musical excellence and artistry. The Chorus’ mission is broad and ambitious: youth development, social healing and community building are the fundamental goals, and music is the powerful tool we employ for social change. Please visit their website for more information www.bostonchildrenschorus.org.

If you get a chance and want to hear some great local jazz while at the same time supporting an important local arts initiative, I completely recommend going to check out Dave, Kyle and the rest of their ensemble!

Many thanks to Ellen Peterson in the NPS Central Office and Mrs. Gagnon, one of our fine music teachers at the elementary schools, for passing along this ScienceDaily article regarding music education and development of reading skills.  The article examines a recent study by researchers at Long Island University that suggests that sustained, progressive education in music helps children perform better in tasks requiring verbal sequencing skills and vocabulary than children without that same music education.

It turns out to be an interesting study, with possible ramifications regarding optimal timing for starting music education, but it also reaffirms something we’ve known about music education for a long time: even beyond the benefits of artistic experience for its own sake on the life of a person, arts education can have a positive impact on fine motor control, spatial reasoning, kinesthetics and any number of the other facets of learning.

Enjoy!

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Ah, the miracle of technology.  Enjoy!

Mental Floss is a great publication about knowledge and thinking–and, just our luck, they happen to pretty regularly feature articles on music and musicians.  Here are some of the more recent gems:

1. Musician’s Brains:  An examination of recent studies into what happens in musicians’ brains when they play–it turns out that we are, in fact, different from a lot of people.  The faculty this year has spent a lot of time with Dan Pink’s A Whole New Mind, which talks about the notion that the next generation of American professionals will be much better served by being able to use both hemispheres of their brain–the left side, which is generally more analytical, and the right side, which is generally more holistic and empathetic.  It turns out the subjects like math and music (which are very closely connected to begin with) utilizes and develops both sides of the brain–another reason why music education is so important!
2. 5 Peculiar Instruments:  A lighter piece, on five instruments you may never have heard before.  Some are relatively well-known, like the didgeridoo, and some I’d never even heard of, like the Hang, which is reminiscent of a cross between a UFO and a metal pie.
3. The Instrument Behind the Adults on Peanuts:  The jazz students probably already guessed this one, but it’s a trombone with a plunger mute.  It does have a cool video of Wycliffe Gordon demonstrating how he warms up and plays with one, though, and Gordon is a killer trombonist.

There’s plenty more out there, so poke around!