Everyone is a Musician!

The holiday season is always filled with music, everywhere you go—from Bing Crosby to Mariah Carey to Benjamin Britten. No matter our tastes, music helps us tap into moods and feelings, alone or with others, in ways that deepen our experience of our own inner life. For every student at Gathering Waters, music is part of every school day.

Middle school orchestra rehearsing for an upcoming concert.

Singing together engages us as whole people and brings unity, rhythm and harmony into our day.

In Kindergarten, songs flow throughout activity transitions, before snack and lunch, and during circle time and free play. In the early grades, pentatonic flutes and recorders are added to the morning lesson routine, and in fourth grade students begin learning stringed orchestral instruments in their class ensemble. Songs, recorders, and orchestra continue through middle school, and some students pick up a band instrument, such as trumpet, trombone, or saxophone. In the high school, every student is part of the chorus, and all students choose one music elective: orchestra, a capella chorus, jazz band, or guitar-ukelele-bass ensemble. The walls of our classrooms vibrate with musical sound waves!

High school expands the instrumental and vocal options with guitar, jazz band, and a cappella chorus.

Flutes and song in the early grades are the foundation to more musical exploration later on.

There is no greater feeling of belonging than when you sing or play music with others. The individual, holding their part, contributes to the whole, adding their musical voice to a group that would be incomplete without them. Every voice matters, every voice belongs. 

– Nell Wiener, Music Teacher