Arts
Ellington's mission is to emphasize the arts as much as academics. It offers training in eight disciplines: Dance, Literary Media and Communications, Museum Studies, Instrumental or Vocal Music, Theater, Technical Theater, and Visual Arts.
In support of their arts program, the school offers master classes taught by accomplished artists such as Wynton Marsalis, Billy Taylor, Lynn Whitfield, and Lionel Hampton.
The school is recognized for, among other things, its award-winning Duke Ellington Show Choir. Established in 1986, the Choir performs all types of music including Broadway, Gospel, Spirituals, Opera, Jazz, and R&B. The creator, Samuel L. E. Bonds, studied with Todd Duncan. Students in the Choir are required to continue performing academically, maintaining a minimum grade point average of 3.0. As well as performing as part of an ensemble, they are also allowed to focus on solo work. It performs a holiday show of Amahl and the Night Visitors yearly.
The Show Choir has traveled to Europe, Asia, and throughout the United States and territories. It has performed at the White House for Presidents Barack Obama Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and in both Mayor Adrian Fenty and President Barack Obama's inauguration. The Show Choir has shared the stage with Earth Wind and Fire Clay Aiken, Patti LaBelle, Jasmine Guy, Patti Austin, Beyoncé Knowles, Boyz II Men, and Denyce Graves. The Choir has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and sang The Star Spangled Banner for the opening of the Washington Nationals first baseball game.
Read more about this topic: Duke Ellington School Of The Arts
Famous quotes containing the word arts:
“The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and dote on past achievement.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“Musick is certainly a very agreeable Entertainment, but if it would take the entire Possession of our Ears, if it would make us incapable of hearing Sense, if it would exclude Arts that have a much greater Tendency to the Refinement of human Nature; I must confess I would allow it no better Quarter than Plato has done, who banishes it out of his Common-wealth.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“Each of the Arts whose office is to refine, purify, adorn, embellish and grace life is under the patronage of a Muse, no god being found worthy to preside over them.”
—Eliza Farnham (1815–1864)