If you asked me to describe the state of the arts at RE, I would say we are on the move. In the past year, we have added vocal ensembles on both campuses, and the interest from our students and concert goers alike has been off the charts. We created a first-time symphony orchestra at the upper school, allowing our band and string students to take the stage together and providing a terrific performance experience for them and our audiences. We are significantly enhancing the dance and digital arts curricula on both campuses, and have expanded the arts requirements at the middle school, giving our students broad and fulsome opportunities to experience arts of all kinds. We have also made a number of strategic hires to help advance these transformative efforts. 

In July of 2022 as I was in the midst of moving from the west coast, Dr. King called me and let me know that we needed to hire a new drama teacher. We found and hired Laura Montes, a force of nature who directs our upper school play and musical, and leads our brand new and thriving 6-12 vocal music program consisting of the RE Vocal Ensemble and Middle School Chorus. She also teaches our upper school acting classes. Joining her is the talented pianist Arn Xu. Arn is our new, full-time departmental accompanist. He’s the musical director for the upper school musical, and general force for good for all things requiring a collaborative and ever-enthusiastic pianist.

As we navigate our way away from Covid and envision ways to build and sustain the performing arts offerings at the middle school, the inimitable middle school band director Cathi Leibinger and I restructured the elective requirements at the middle school, requiring two full years of performing arts and a year of the visual arts in the middle school years. The result has been immediate; we are seeing great enthusiasm in all arts classes in the middle school and expect continued growth in the coming years. 

This school year brought about another new and exciting change: The RE Symphony Orchestra. This group is a combination of all upper school instrumentalists and is made possible by the amazing collaboration between our outstanding performing arts faculty Jon Hamm and Scott O’Donnell and their wonderful groups. This combination of four different instrumental music courses rehearses during class time and combines forces Wednesdays after school, Friday mornings and occasionally during lunch. For those of you who were lucky enough to be in attendance at the inaugural performance on December 1, 2022, you witnessed something amazing. A two-hour, action-packed concert, featuring the RE Vocal Ensemble, Symphonic Band, String Ensembles and Symphony Orchestra. More than 80 performers brought the 400+ people in attendance to their feet! Join us during Alumni Weekend on Sunday, April 23, at 4:30 p.m. as they present their Major Works Performance. This year’s major work is the Vivaldi “Gloria” as well as programs from the strings, band and vocal ensemble. It will be an excellent capstone to what is always a very special weekend.

To wrap things up I want to welcome two new teachers. Fabienne “Fab” Rousseau teaches studio art at the middle and upper school, and a section of ceramics at the upper school. Additionally, Ms. Rousseau collaborated with the visual arts faculty on writing a new and sure to be extremely popular upper school digital arts course. The plan is for this class to increase in scope and sequence until we build out a fully formed digital arts curriculum at the upper school. We are excited to vertically align the middle school courses that are taught so masterfully by arts faculty members Elsa Muñoz, Connie Hyde and Ellen Grant with our new colleague and this exciting new course. 

Tess Guidry is our new upper school dance teacher. Ms. Guidry is the head coach of the University of Miami Hurricanettes and a former Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. Ms. Guidry will be the assistant coach of the Upper School Dance Team and will spend time working with the eighth-grade dance classes at the middle school. In the fall, she will become the head coach of our dance team and will teach our new upper school dance class, continuing to elevate a program that has made great strides under middle school dance teacher Desiree Masucci. Similar to digital art, dance will slowly build out so that we have three levels of dance at the upper school. Please join me in welcoming Ms. Rousseau and Ms. Guidry to the RE community. 

In closing I would be remiss not to profoundly thank the Ransom Everglades Parents’ Association Arts Council and all of the parents who have helped so much to begin establishing my vision for the future of arts at RE. I think we are off to a great start but keep an eye out; we are just getting warmed up!