South Orangetown Middle School Music teachers Bob Bennett, Priscilla Peña-Carney and Denise Lutter hosted music workshops for students currently taking band, chorus and orchestra on March 29 before they attended “Aladdin” on Broadway! Each workshop featured professional musicians who spoke with students about their careers and offered them tips and tricks on how to improve their performances.
Band members were visited by Becca Patterson, a Tenor/Bass Trombonist who has performed in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular and can be found subbing in current Broadway productions of “Funny Girl” and “Aladdin.” Her workshop focused on helping students practice music dynamics which refers to the different volume levels of a piece of music.
Members of the chorus worked alongside Rebecca Lapinski and Hannah Beck. Lapinski is a singer, actor, educator and founder of the Noteworthy Academy of Music. Beck has been teaching dance, voice, piano, and theatre for the past decade and is the Musical Theatre Director of the Noteworthy Academy of Music. Lapinski and Beck had students rehearse “Arabian Nights” from “Aladdin” before teaching them the choreography.
Composer Paul Yeon Lee has been named one of the “25 Contemporary Composers Helping to Push String Music to New Heights” by the International String Magazine and is a former composer-in-residence with the Korean Symphony Orchestra, the national orchestra in South Korea. Lee focused on the fundamentals of music and spoke with students to learn more about why they chose their instrument and what music means to them.
Thank you to our special guests for providing our students with an invaluable, hands-on learning experience!
