Category Archives: Perfoming Arts

Eagle Regiment Performs in Spain

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by Ken Hoffman

Each year, the city of Castellón de la Plana in Spain holds a festival celebrating the founding of the city in honor of the Virgin Mary. A part of the celebration includes the Festival Internacional de Musica, with performances from bands from around the world. This year, Chaminade’s Eagle Regiment was one of those bands. In festival history, there have been only four appearances by a band from the United States.

The first full day in Spain was busy for the band. Their first event was an Intersolfa – an informal parade when the circus comes to town. Traffic stopped for the band as it began to march through town to advertize the upcoming musical festivities, and draw people to the park for the Mascletas. At the halfway mark, the band stopped to play for the members at one of the Gaitas, or community social clubs. The regiment then continued to the park, where they played a standstill performance for the attendees.

The band became tourists and witnessed the Mascletas, a fireworks competition part of the Magdalena. Fireworks shows are judged on musical concepts like balance, pacing, rhythm, dynamics, etc. After a short rest, the band participated in another parade; this time with a band from Poland. This parade had an audience of more than 1,000 people, and involved throwing colorful confetti.

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To finish the day, Eagle Regiment participated in Animacion, or the stage show. With bands from Poland, Hungary, and Holland, Chaminade’s band performed a stage show for an audience of more than 3,000 in the town square, Plaça Major. Under the lights and with a national television audience, Eagle Regiment thrilled the crowd with their performance!

Friday, the band’s second day in Spain included the International Parade. In addition to the bands which had performed the night before, we were joined by the bands from Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, and Croatia. While the International Parade was not excessively long in length (just under three miles), it took approximately two hours, and Chaminade students performed like seasoned vets! The crowd of over 30,000 people smiled, clapped, and cheered.

The students and teachers also participated in a brief ceremony at City Hall, where Drum Major Kyle Pineda presented gifts to the Mayor. Eagle Regiment traveled to Onda and visited St. Mary’s, a church built in 1240. After their excursion to Onda, they attended Mass on Saturday night.

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During the march to Plaça Major a Dutch band, Damiate Haarlem, asked Eagle Regiment to march with them. The two groups joined together and held an impromptu parade through the streets with Damiate Haarlem.

This final stage performance was in front of an audience of more than 3,000. The Dutch and Polis bands waited for Eagle Regiment to conclude their performance and they all marched back together. A marathon blocked their parade back, so for the next hour, they held had an impromptu concert in the streets, and a crowd of hundreds gathered around to listen.

On their last day in Spain, Eagle Regiment was invited to be the final band in a parade that started at 10:00 p.m. The students truly demonstrated all that is asked of them as Marianists, and they have set the standard for many others to follow.

Chaminade Celebrates Fine Arts Family Spirit Night

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By Jennifer Bader P ’18

On Friday, February 13 the Chaminade middle school and high school fine arts departments joined together to showcase their talented students at the first ever Fine Arts Family Spirit Night.

More than 100 students from drama, band, choir, dance, and aerial performed before a sold out crowd at the Tutor Family Center for the Performing Arts. Audience members were also treated to screenings of student films and displays of art work. Alex Mansour ’15 and Hiba Alnajjar ’19 served as emcees for the evening.

Chaminade Fine Arts has much to celebrate in the coming weeks. The annual Film Festival will be held Saturday, February 21. In March, the Eagle Regiment Band will be traveling to Spain to perform in an international music festival, and the middle school C-Notes will be travelling to New York City for the third time to perform at Carnegie Hall as the featured choir. The Chaminade Players will also be presenting Disney’s Beauty and the Beast March 13 through 15 and March 20 through 22.

Visit Chaminade’s Facebook page to view more photos.

Chaminade Drama Goes to DTASC!

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Last weekend, more than 2,000 students from 70 schools participated in the Drama Teachers Association of Southern California (DTASC) Fall Festival at Temecula Valley High School in Temecula, California. Chaminade’s high school drama students from performed in six out of a possible eight categories. DTASC is a student driven competition, with the drama director serving as coach/advisor as students direct their fellow students in timed scenes following specific guidelines.

All students perform their scenes for judges in two rounds before cuts begin. All of Chaminade’s scenes moved on to semi-finals, three of which moved on to the final round receiving the following awards:

  • Second place trophy in the Large Open Drama category for a scene from Warhorse directed by and featuring Hannah Ponturo ’15 and Thomas Kuklenski ’16, with Samantha Bloomfield ’18, Brandon Marsh ’16, Christian Puente-Ortiz ’17, Jonah Warschaw ’16.
  • Honorable Mention in the Play of Social Conscience category for a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest directed by and featuring Maeve Martinez ’16, with Joe Gutesha ’17, William Rose-Hines ’18, Ryan Town ’16.
  • Honorable Mention plaque in the More Than a Narrator category for a scene from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland directed by and featuring Daisy Bishop ’17, with Gracie Jurczyk ’17, Nora Rose-Hines ’18, Bella Torres ’17.
  • Shout out for Audition Monologue went to Charlotte Powers ’17; Theme Collage Musical directed by and featuring Brianna Bryan ’15, Lily Khalighi ’16, with Amanda Drewes ’17, Ian Home ’16, Alejandro Navarro ’16, Zoie Tannous ’16, Dominic Torquato ’15; and Large Open Comedy directed by and featuring Matt Masino ’15, with Mark Diaz ’18, Lauren Nwajei ’16, Mary Reynosa ’17, Natalie Rowland ’17, and Sam Yu ’16 – our semi-finalists!

Chaminade Players stage management team members Lindsay Holcomb ’15, Rebecca Gerny ’16, and Thomas Martin ’17 served as room chairs for the competition, maintaining rules and timing scenes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

C-Notes to be Feature Choir at Carnegie Hall Concert

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HP-Photo26AOn March 22, 2015, Chaminade College Preparatory’s C-Notes will take the Carnegie Hall stage for the third time as the feature choir during the National Youth Choral Festival. The choir was selected by Carnegie adjudicators as the group who’s audition DVD scored the highest among a nationwide selection of Gold choirs.

Comprised of 71 middle school students (current members) and six high school students (former members), the C-Notes will proudly represent the Chaminade family on the Carnegie stage. They will be accompanied by Alex Mansour ’15 on the piano and Veronica Mansour ’17 on the cello.

Middle School Music Teacher Kathy Rohrs Receives Innovation in Education Award

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On Monday, May 19, Chaminade’s middle school music teacher, Kathy Rohrs, received the Innovation in Education Award from The Valley Economic Alliance, at the 14th Annual Steve Allen Excellence in Education Awards ceremony. Each year The Valley Economic Alliance recognizes San Fernando Valley schools, educators and students that achieved national recognition during the school year.

Recognized for her innovative use of music in the classroom and in the community, Mrs. Rohrs also received certificates of achievement and recognition from the California State Senate, California Legislature Assembly, the City of Burbank, the City of San Fernando, the Calabasas City Council, Mayor’s Commendation from the City of Glendale, and the City of Los Angeles Councilmembers Paul Krekorian and Mitchell Englander.

Mrs. Rohrs is a vocalist, guitarist, harpist, conductor, composer and music educator. She is a native of the San Fernando Valley, and currently holds a bachelor’s degree in classical guitar and a K-12 Secondary Music Credential in Music Education from California State University, Northridge. She joined the Chaminade family in 2001 and serves as the music director and choral director of the Chaminade C-Notes. Under her instruction, the Chaminade C-Notes have had the honor to travel and sing in Washington D.C., Chaminade University in Hawaii and to New York performing as the solo feature choir for the National Children’s Festival at Carnegie Hall in 2011 and 2013. The C-Notes are honored to return to New York to perform on the prestigious Carnegie Hall stage on March 22, 2015.