Music/Dramatic Arts

PRIMARY MUSIC: K -- 2ND GRADE

Primary music students meet twice a week for 30 minutes. All classes will be working from either the Kindergarten, 1st, or 2nd grade level Share the Music CD and book series published by MacMillan/McGraw-Hill. It is an older edition but it's still a great, well-rounded comprehensive music series. The skills covered in this series are in line with the National Music Standards as well as the standards set forth by the Archdiocese. Primary students are involved with a lot of movement (for the development of motor skills and hand-eye coordination, etc.), singing, playing rhythm instruments and development of listening skills. Each grade-level will learn to read and write basic musical notation, appropriate to their age, and all primary students will have the opportunity to perform for our school Christmas Program in December.

                                         

                                Primary Music Teacher Tina Paradiso-Herlein

In addition to our Primary Music Program for our Kindergarten-2nd grade students, Holy Family now offers a unique and exciting new Music and Dramatic Arts program for our third-through-eighth graders, giving these students the opportunity to choose many of the songs they will play and sing in a classroom-studio equipped with digital keyboards, electric bass and guitars, drum sets, microphones, and two performing stages.

Some of the songs our students have already learned and performed this year include "Royals," "Radioactive," "Wake Me Up," "Pompeii," "Happy," "I  Love Rock n' Roll," "Seven Nation Army," and "Don't Stop Believing."

Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade-students will also have the opportunity to write and record their own songs, culminating with each student receiving a finished CD of their work.


Music/Dramatic Arts teachers Rick Weiss and Kate Finn each bring more than twenty-five years of experience to Holy Family, teaching private lessons in voice, piano, guitar, and drums, as well as fifteen years of teaching songwriting/CD production workshops in Portland schools through Community of Writers. 

3rd - 8th Grade Music Teachers Rick Weiss and Kate Finn