St. Mary’s Students Selected for the All-East Honor Choir
From Left to Right: Mrs. Carol Villaverde-SMS Music Teacher, Ryan Audet, Luca Filigenzi, Amelia Van Berkel, Sophie Sherlock, Elizabeth Brands, Kayla Kupsch and Ethan Kilevori
Seven St. Mary’s School students in grades 7 and 8 were selected for the East Tennessee Vocal Association’s All-East Junior High/Middle School Honor Choir. Auditions were held on November 17 – 18 at Maryville College and the Clayton Center for the Arts. This year’s All-East Junior High/Middle School Honor Choir was made up of approximately 260 advanced 7th and 8th grade vocal students from 35 schools throughout East Tennessee. Other honor choirs at the event included a Freshman Honor Choir, as well as a Women’s Choir, a Men’s Choir, and a Mixed Choir for auditioned students in 10th – 12th grades.
The students learned and memorized their voice part on five pieces of music prior to attending the honors chorus. The challenging repertoire allowed them to sing in multiple languages and styles and in a variety of 3 and 4 part voicings. Literature from this year’s concert included “Babethandaza” by Victor C. Johnson, “I Sing Because I’m Happy” by Kenneth Padden and Rollo Dilworth, “The River Sleeps Beneath the Sky” by Victor C. Johnson, “I Lift My Eyes” by Bob Chilcott, and “Rest Not” by Laura Farnell.
This year’s conductor was Martha Shaw, the Director of Choirs at Reinhardt University in Waleska, GA, where she directs the select Chamber Singers, the 100-voice Concert Choir, and also serves as Professor of Music. She teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses in choral literature, choral methods, and conducting. Shaw is the founding director of the world-renowned Spivey Hall Children’s Choir & Tour Choir in Atlanta. Congratulations to our 7thand 8th grade students for such an accomplishment!
St. Mary’s 8th grade students, Molly Deinhart, Anthony Filigenzi, and Genevieve Krass, competed on Saturday, April 29, 2017 in the State You Be The Chemist Challenge®. We are pleased to announce that both Anthony and Molly advanced to the quarterfinals (top 15) and that Anthony continued to the semifinals and finished in fourth place overall for the state. The You Be The Chemist Challenge® is sponsored by the Chemical Educational Foundation® (CEF), a nationally recognized non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing science education. CEF’s fastest growing program is the You Be The Chemist Challenge® (Challenge). The Challenge is an exciting academic contest that uses the drama of competition to encourage grade 5–8 students to explore important chemistry concepts, scientific discoveries, and laboratory safety. Think spelling bees or quiz bowls but with science questions!
The Challenge operates on three competitive levels: local, state, and national. Top Local Challenge competitors advance to State Challenge competitions, and one winner from each State Challenge advances to the National Challenge held each June in Philadelphia, PA. CEF creates the educational content, industry and community members organize and/or sponsor the events, and educators reinforce science concepts with all of their students through the supplemental study materials.
The experience was certainly memorable for everyone that participated in this year’s Tennessee Treble Honor Choir. The singers sang under the direction of Debbie Burton and Margaret Orem. Debbie Burton is a classroom music teacher at Jerebek Elementary School and Crown Point Junior Music Academy, and is an adjunct professor at San Diego State University and Point Loma Nazarene University teaching Music for Elementary School Teachers. She is a local and national Orff and Kodaly presenter. Margaret Orem is a classroom music teacher at Jerabek Elementary School and conducts a school volunteer choir. She also conducts the Preparatory Choir for the San Diego Children’s Choir.
Eighteen of the St. Mary’s school-level Science Fair winners participated in the regional Southern Appalachian Science & Engineering Fair (SASEF) at the University of Tennessee on March 28-30, 2017.
Anna Kasemir, an 8th grader at St. Mary’s School in Oak Ridge, recently participated in the American Choral Directors Association 2017 National Junior High/Middle School Honor Choir. Over 4,400 singers auditioned to participate in the three conference honor choirs. Of the 298 singers selected to sing in the JH/MS choir, Anna was the only singer from the state of Tennessee. The ACDA National Conference was hosted at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota on March 8th – 11th. The event involved over 5,000 attendees in which all fifty states were represented, as well as, thirty foreign countries. The JH/MS Honor Choir performed in two concerts on Saturday, March 11th.
After wonderful week of rehearsals and concerts, Anna and her music teacher, Mrs. Carol Villaverde, celebrated by visiting a unique downtown Minneapolis landmark, The Schmitt Music Wall. It is a five-story mural on the side of a building near 10th and Marquette featuring over-sized musical notes. The music is from a piano piece written by French composer Maurice Ravel called “Gaspard de la Nuit.” The section depicted on the building comes from the third movement, called “Scarbo.” Many musicians say it is arguably the most difficult piece to play for a solo pianist. What an amazing way to end a wonderful week of music making!
Biological Sciences
