Grand Isle County schools celebrate art and music at annual showcases

GRAND ISLE/SOUTH HERO – For a few hours over the past week, public schools across the Champlain Islands became temporary music halls and art museums, hosting annual art and music showcases for students from Grand Isle County’s three schools.

Each of the county’s three schools hosted an annual arts and music night this past week, welcoming their respective communities to view artworks prepared by local elementary and middle schoolers, and hear music performed by their schools’ respective music programs.

According to local educators, the annual showcases were valuable for students, providing budding artists a chance to display their work to their parents and classmates, and giving the schools’ music programs an annual goal in the form of promised end-of-year performances.

“They can grow confidence when they see their art put up for display,” Victoria Dominguez Morrison, an art teacher at the Grand Isle School, told The Islander shortly before her school’s Spring Arts Festival began. “It makes them feel like they’ve accomplished something when they share it with their parents and each other.”

Dominguez Morrison’s students had most of their work displayed in the Grand Isle School’s cafeteria this year. Younger students displayed collages emphasizing basic artistic concepts colors and symmetry, while older students were allowed to select specific projects for display. Some projects emphasized students’ pop culture interests, while others stemmed from lessons focused on painter Georgia O’Keefe.

Students had also put together a blacklight room to showcase some of their work, creating a darkened space on the cafeteria stage in the Grand Isle School.

The school’s music teacher Austin McNamara agreed that regular showcases like the Spring Arts Festival could be important for the Grand Isle School’s students.

“I think it’s a great motivator to help them be the best they can be,” McNamara told The Islander. “If they’re playing on the stage, they’re working to be the best they can be.”

“It’s also an opportunity to share what they’ve been doing,” he added.

The students’ performances in Grand Isle this year leaned more into popular music familiar to students and their parents. Fourth graders sang to music by Coldplay and were joined by student trumpeters for “Fly Me to the Moon,” the jazz staple associated with Frank Sinatra. Fifth graders, meanwhile, covered Ariana Grande’s “Break Free” and sixth graders took on songs by David Bowie and Cage the Elephant.

To the north of Grand Isle, community members congregated at the Alburgh Community Education Center for that school’s annual arts showcase and a community meal organized by the Healthy Roots Collaborative and several partnering agricultural organizations. According to organizers, the showcase’s accompanying meal had been prepared by both volunteers and students from the Alburgh school.

In South Hero, meanwhile, students from the Folsom Education and Community Center also celebrated their annual Arts Night, performing introductory songs like “Ballet of the Dinosaur Hatchlings” alongside recognizable tracks like “The Pink Panther Theme” and the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.”

Marissa Jedziniak, the Folsom Education and Community Center’s music teacher, said she was excited to have the students share their work with members of the South Hero community.

“Having an opportunity to share with others is important,” Jedziniak told The Islander. “It’s important to have something to work for and to also be vulnerable with an audience.”

In a nearby hallway, artwork prepared by the Folsom Education and Community Center’s students hung from display boards and decorated table tops. Throughout the evening, parents toured the elementary and middle school, snapping cellular phone photos of their students’ work as their children led them through the South Hero school.

According to Jamie Bedard, the Folsom Education and Community Center’s art teacher, students were allowed to pick the projects they displayed during the school’s Arts Night, selecting works that ranged from ceramic animals to abstract sculptures and collages, and sketches based on popular video games and horror movies.

Even the event’s programs detailing the Arts Night happenings and naming the students participating in every musical group were designed by students at the Folsom Education and Community Center.

“I think it’s important for them to see through an art project and then have it hanging up,” Bedard told The Islander. “I think a big piece, too, is for students to see each other’s work.”