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Featured image provided by Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts
February 11, 2020 (Bethlehem, PA)–-The award-winning music department of the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts (Charter Arts) held its annual Music Faculty Recital on February 7, 2020, to a packed house in the school’s main theatre. This free event was part of the school’s First Friday festivities, which also included an opening reception for the Faculty & Alumni Art Exhibit in the school’s Corpora Gallery and a Production Arts Creativity Fair, which was on display at the National Museum of Industrial History, located around the corner from the school.
The faculty recital featured the school’s accomplished roster of professional musicians who are also esteemed educators, including Matthew Wells, Neil Chaban, David Macbeth, Kelsey Kish, Kim Seifert, Chet Brown, Erica Dickson, Tom Maher, Amy Chryst, and Mike Lorenz. Each individual faculty member holds impressive professional accolades that include working with some of the music industry’s most significant artists and performing on some of the world’s most prestigious stages. Wells and Macbeth are also nominated for Educator of the Year at the 2020 Lehigh Valley Music Awards. A few other faculty, student and alumni musicians also participated in the recital.
Wells, who is the school’s Director of Music, opened the show applauding the incredible work of his colleagues, “It is an honor to work with the amazing musicians you see before you and it brings me joy to come to work every day knowing that I am a part of a music faculty that has such a profound effect on the lives of their students.”
Wells also shared that the faculty recital is a tradition that began ten years ago when the school was located on the north side of Bethlehem and then continued to pick up a steady following when the school relocated in 2015 to its current facility in South Bethlehem’s Arts District, “This recital gives us an excellent opportunity to perform for our students and it serves as an introduction to prospective students and parents who are considering joining the Charter Arts music community.”
To view the Charter Arts Music Department’s curriculum, faculty biographies, and winter/spring 2020 performance season events, visit, www.CharterArts.org.
ABOUT THE CHARTER ARTS MUSIC DEPARTMENT:
Instrumental Music and Vocal Music are two distinct individual departments at Charter Arts. However, some of the courses are required of both majors while others are department-specific. Instrumental students are provided large ensemble experience through Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, Charter Arts Big Band and Percussion Ensemble. Small ensembles such as Advanced Jazz Combo, Pop/Jazz Ensemble, Guitar Ensemble, Chamber Ensemble, and String Ensemble also boast a full concert schedule. Through community partnerships, students also perform at various venues across the Lehigh Valley.
In the Charter Arts Vocal Music program, students learn to read music at an advanced level, as well as understand the historical setting of the pieces in their musical repertoire. The faculty helps them listen analytically, with skills that develop both their critical sense of music and thought. Working with each other, students learn teamwork and become creative and cooperative members of musical ensembles.
Beyond ensembles, the music curriculum is vast and challenging. Students have four years of music theory and four years in a technique class where the vocalists work with a vocal specialist and the instrumentalists work with a specialist in their instrument family. Along with a collection of music electives, these classes prepare students for careers as professional musicians, music majors in college or university, and/or lifelong lovers and learners of music.
The Charter Arts Music Department is led by Matthew Wells, Director and Neil Chaban, Assistant Director.
ABOUT THE LEHIGH VALLEY CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS (Charter Arts)
Charter Arts is an audition-based, tuition-free, public charter school that provides a comprehensive curriculum for high school students, grades 9-12, who have a passion for the arts. Students major in one of seven artistic areas: dance, literary arts, instrumental music, theatre, vocal music, production arts, or visual arts.
Charter Arts’ rigorous curriculum fosters both academic and artistic excellence for its students. The school’s impressive Future Ready PA Index ranking, Advanced Placement (AP) exam statistics, Keystone exam statistics, SAT scores, prestigious artistic accolades, and graduation rate are a testament to the outstanding education Charter Arts provides.
Charter Arts is proud to celebrate its eighteenth year as one of the most respected high schools for the arts in the nation. Charter Arts was one of only 349 schools in the nation to be named a 2018 National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence by the U.S. Department of Education. In addition, Charter Arts earned a Silver Award for its impressive ranking on U.S. News & World Report’s 2019 Best High Schools for the Arts in America list. In 2020, the school earned the Title I Distinguished School designation for the fourth year in a row, placing it in the top 5 % of all Title I high schools in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Charter Arts is located at 321 East 3rd Street, Bethlehem PA 18015.For more information about Charter Arts, visit: www.CharterArts.org or call 610-868-2971.
Information & Image Provided By:
Ann Gillette
Manager of Public Relations and Media
Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts
321 East 3rd Street, Bethlehem, PA 18015
www.CharterArts.org
