Early Childhood and Lower School music classes encourage children to explore music through play, song, and dance. Students actively create, improvise, perform, and learn about the world around them through music.
The Early Childhood and Lower School music curriculum gives each child a thorough understanding of the rudiments of music. In Early Childhood music classes, the students develop a sense of steady beat, rhythm, melodic direction and pitch. By the time a child completes second grade, he/she has been exposed to the instruments of the orchestra, and various musical genres ranging from classical music to folk songs, both from the United States and around the world. Students are comfortable playing pitched and unpitched instruments, and can read rhythmic notation and understand simple solfege. Children have also participated in several concerts and a second grade mini-musical.
In third and fourth grade children achieve greater musical independence in their ability to read and play a piece of music. Each student has their own recorder with which to improve their skills. The third and fourth grade students also have the option to join the Lower School Chorus, which provides more performance opportunities, including a mini-musical production each spring. The Lower School chorus not only enhances a child’s singing abilities, but it also exposes them to the world of performance, acting and musical theater.