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INSIDE• Principal’s Message• Department Updates• Student Services Update

Volume 15 • No. 2Winter 2018

Published Quarterly

Cover photo courtesy of Shelley Bourgeois

the

Upcoming Performances

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Mar. 9 Visual Art Reception, 6 p.m.Mar. 9-11 Into The Woods

(2 p.m. on Mar. 11)Mar. 15 Chamber Choral ConcertMar. 22 Chamber Strings ConcertApr. 7 Red Carpet GalaApr. 10 Spring Guitar ConcertApr. 13-14 Short-Film Showcase

(2 p.m. & 7 p.m. on Apr. 14)Apr. 19-20 Spring Dance ConcertsApr. 24 Spring Choral ConcertApr. 27 Spring Orchestra ConcertMay 3 Spring Jazz ConcertMay 4 Literary Magazine Event

Principal’sMessage

Daryl Ward, Ph.D.

Greetings Harrison Families, With the third nine-weeks al-most over, the 2017-18 school year is definitely flying by. As you read through the articles in this issue, I’m sure you’ll be amazed by all of the amazing opportunities afforded our students here at Harrison. One thing’s for sure: we certainly keep them busy! I am grateful for all of the work our teachers and staff put in on behalf of our students. The numerous activities/performances/masterclasses that Harrison students are offered are a large part of what makes Harrison a special place. I want to take a moment and encourage you to consider attending our upcoming Red Carpet fundrais-ing event on April 7. This annual tradition features a silent auction, great food, and amazing student performances. A special treat for this year’s evening is the second-ever public performances of When You Dream, an original “mini-musical” about legendary Publix founder, George Jenkins. When You Dream premiered in January at the annual Lakeland Chamber dinner to much positive acclaim. It was won-derful to have such a diverse audi-ence of Chamber members get to see the amazing talent of our Har-rison students. We are so excited to be able to perform it again - this time for the general public. You can purchase tickets ($50) by going to

the Harrison web site and clicking on the link at the upper right side of the page. All of the proceeds of this evening go right back to our various Harrison departments. I hope you’ll be able to join us for this wonderful event! I also want to take this space and encourage you to be extra-aware of your student’s social, emo-tional, and academic health. No one would deny that these are trying and even frightful times we live in. It’s important to provide our students with safe outlets to be creative and to express their individual voices - the arts are a great vehicle for that. At Harrison we will continue to work towards making our commu-nities better places by educating our students in ways to communicate, to create, and to serve the greater good. I feel so fortunate to be sur-rounded by these amazing young people. With the guidance from our faculty and staff, they not only make great art, but they also inspire great hope for the future. I’m grate-ful to our Harrison parents for their significant role in making Harrison the school that it is. It’s great fun to be working together to educate our students.

All performances at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted.Dates and performances subject to change.Purchase tickets at www.harrisonarts.com

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ACT/SAT: It is recommended that juniors take the ACT and SAT once during the second half of the junior year. ACT registration information can be found at act.org and SAT registration information can be found at sat.org. Please set up an account with College Board and link to Khan Academy for FREE practice tests and individualized resources. When registering, use Harrison’s high school code: 100891. Fee waivers are available for students whose families meet federal income levels or are in certain federal programs. See your counselor for more information.

ACT Test Dates: April 14 (register by March 9) June 9 (register by May 4) July 14 (register by June 15)

SAT Test Dates: May 5 (register by April 6) June 2 (register by May 3)

Seniors who are trying to receive a qualifying score for a Florida Bright Futures scholarship may use the June 2018 ACT or SAT test dates to qualify. The July ACT will not be considered.

Seniors: Please send in proof of your college acceptances to your counselor. You can provide a copy to the front office or email your acceptance to Lesley.Chambers@polk-fl.net or Felicia.Jackson@polk-fl.net. Also, keep track of ALL scholarship dollars offered to you. We will request this information at the end of the year.

Junior Conferences for Students and Parents: The conferences were held in small groups by departments from February 5 - 14. We had a successful turnout. Thank you, parents, for making your participation a priority. Please remember to review the items shared in the conference and prioritize tasks to make the most of the remainder of your junior year.

Sophomore Registration Conferences: Sophomore registration conferences took place in Harrison classes the week of January 29. Students reviewed their scholastic records, graduation requirements, completed course registration for the 2018-19 school year, and updated their four-year plan. Students have copies available to bring home and share with parents. Mrs. Chambers and Mrs. Jackson will be back in the sophomore classes later this semester to share important information regarding college/career readiness and access, resume building, scholarships, and financial aid.

Freshmen Class Conferences: Freshmen conferences are taking place February 22 – March 2 through Harrison classes. Students will review their scholastic records,

graduation requirements, complete course registration for the 2018-19 school year, and develop their four-year plan. Students will also learn about the Florida Bright Futures program, Florida Shines, My Career Shines, scholarships, and financial aid. Students will have a packet of information to bring home and share with parents.

Scholarship Bulletin: Our scholarship bulletin is updated monthly and available via our website, sent via our email system, and posted in each Harrison classroom. Scholarships are available for students in grades 9-12.

Community Service Hours: Harrison students, grades 9-12, must have all community service hours documented and submitted via the online Google Doc, found at www.harrisonarts.com, by April 16, 2018. It is recommended that students keep record of their specific hours prior to submitting. Please contact Mrs. Moroney, community service coordinator, at Karen.Moroney@polk-fl.net for assistance.

Raise.Me Micro-scholarships: Students can guarantee scholarships from 250+ colleges as early as 9th grade, making it easier to plan financially for school. RaiseMe has proven to be a great tool to motivate students in high schools throughout the U.S.

As an example: • Get an A in a course ($100 - $1,000) • Get a B in a course ($50-$600) • Participate in a school club or sport ($25 - $250) • And much more!

Harrison School for the Arts is among the first in the country to take advantage of this opportunity, which was launched with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and U.S. colleges. Mrs. Chambers and Mrs. Jackson are sharing Raise.Me with each Harrison student via their grade-level conferences, including how to create an account. Visit www.raise.me/parents for more information.

Student Services Update

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The Chorus department successfully com-pleted a packed holiday performance

season in December! The month concluded a calendar full of Harrison’s Music of the Sea-sons, Candlelight Processionals at Epcot, and numerous other holiday performances, includ-ing a concert in conjunction with Bok Tower, a Harrison Tradition. Upon returning from Winter Break, we hit the ground running with many events in January and February. In the first weekend in January, eight Harrison voice students com-peted in the Schmidt Youth Voice Competition hosted at Palm Beach Atlantic University. The competition, which is affiliated with the Sara-sota Opera, Cincinnati Opera, and other orga-nizations, focuses on supporting high school aged singers develop their skill as performers. Harrison Sophomore Kayla Sconiers received an award for her outstanding performance. The following weekend, Harrison took 18 Students to Tampa to participate in the Florida Music Educators All-State Choirs. Harrison was represented in three of the four All-State Honor Choirs, and ranked among the most well-represented programs in the state. In February, Harrison students compet-ed in the Florida Vocal Association’s District Solo and Ensemble Festival. Of the 53 Har-rison students who participated, 31 received Superior Ratings and 22 received Excellent Ratings. On February 14, Harrison students celebrated the Valentine Holiday all around Polk County with singing Valentine Grams. With over 60 performances, Harrison students were found in local businesses, homes, and schools with the Satin Dolls participating in the Polk County Courthouse’s Valentine Cer-emonies. In March, we will bring the Harrison Women’s Chorus, the Harrison Men’s Chorus, and the Harrison Chamber Singers to compete in the Florida Vocal Association’s District Music Performance Assessment.

Guitar Chorus

On January 19 the Guitar Department participated in the FMEA High School Honors Solo and Ensemble MPA.

With a total of 23 students playing solos, 15 of them received ratings of Superior with Distinction and 8 were rated as Supe-rior. The students with the highest rating were Riley Donahue, Coleman Ellis, Camille Hagins, Anthony Hannan, Zack Hall, Aaron Jones, Aubrey Moore, Steven Peterson, David Pyle, Stephaney Quintero Andrade, Maria Salazar, Alex Shadood, Joseph Smith, Tyler Thompson, and Jessie Thurman. The Su-perior ratings went to James Halman, Michael Novakowski, Webb Olson, Sebastian Rodriguez-Borysek, Kelsey Roubal, Maguire Schmid, Nick Wood, and Ryan Yassen. In addition, three ensembles participated, with Supe-rior with Distinction ratings going to Aeolian (Coleman Ellis, James Halman, Aaron Jones, Webb Olson, Stephaney Quin-tero Andrade, Sebastian Rodriguez-Borysek, Alex Shadood, and Jessie Thurman) and to the duo of Tori Cunningham and Lauren Simons. The duo of Coleman Ellis and Webb Olson received a Superior rating. On Saturday, February 24 Aeolian took part in the FMEA Guitar Ensemble Festival. The festival was held at the Howard W. Blake High School, Hillsborough County’s arts high school in Tampa. There, several ensembles from high schools as far away as Tallahassee performed for each other and were given evaluations by Chuck Hulihan, a clinician who works with guitar ensembles all over the U.S., and who has directed the guitar ensemble for the Guitar Foundation of America’s annual convention. Congratulations are in order for Stephaney Quintero Andrade, who has been awarded the HPA Summer Experi-ence Scholarship. Stephaney will be travelling to Oklahoma City in June to participate in the Celedonio Romero Guitar institute. There, she will have the opportunity to participate in daily master classes with the world renowned guitar quartet, the Romeros, as well as take private lessons with members of the quartet every other day. We are now preparing for our Spring Guitar Concert, which will take place on April 10. The program will include Cuban Landscape and Rain by Leo Brouower, English Sere-nade by Mark Houghton, Spin by Andrew York, Blues Caribe by Roque Carbajo, and You Won’t See Me by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. In addition, we will be introducing guitar ensembles for each grade level, 9th through 12th. There will also be the usual solos and small ensembles, and I’m excited by some of the solos that I see our students preparing, includ-ing a piece by Stevie Ray Vaughn as well as the usual classical guitar composers. We hope to see all of our Guitar Department families there!

The Polk All-County Dance Gala will be held at Har-rison School for the Arts this year! The Gala will

be facilitated by our own Shelley Bourgeois. Students from the many dance programs in our county will at-tend and participate in the all-day event here at the Har-rison Campus. Guest artists this year include Sarah Harkness-Sebastian from Santa Fe College who will be teaching Musical Theatre Jazz. She received her M.F.A. degree from The Florida State University School of Dance and earned her B.A. in Theatre Arts, with a minor in Dance, at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. As the former Artistic Director and Founder of Meh-Tropolis Dance Theatre in Los Ange-les, she has directed or produced many Musicals and Performances. Hip-Hop will be taught by Sean McDonald who received his B.F.A. in Modern Dance at the University of South Florida. There he performed works by Doug Verone, Merce Cunningham, and Dionne Noble. In 2016, Sean was invited to the Coco Dance Festival in Trinidad where he assisted Jeanne Travers with master classes and performed Travers’ work, A Bridge Beyond. Sean has performed professionally with Adin & Fergu-son Dance Theatre, Shoes At The Door Dance, Moving Current Dance Collective, Tampa Modern Dance Com-pany, Rogue Dance, and is currently a dancer-perform-er with Event Show Productions, Tell-A-Vision, and a dancer-resident choreographer for Collective Soles Dance Company. Beth Brier will hold classes in the Circus Arts. She received ballet training from the Pennsylvania Bal-let School. As her focus and passion grew to include Musical Theatre, Beth established BB’s Dance Factory in Clearwater in 1999 and later the studio’s name was changed to Dance & Circus Arts of Tampa Bay to re-flect the newly expanded programs. In 2008, Beth was awarded a grant from the Pinellas County Arts Coun-cil to further her education and research in building the Circus Arts program for her school. She has also worked alongside Debra Brown, Emmy Award Win-ning Choreographer of Cirque du Soleil, learning how Cirque creates their shows. Beth has created and pro-duced over 46 original Musical Theater/Dance/Cirque productions since opening her studio. Dance & Circus Arts was featured in 3 national publications Dance

magazine, Dance Teacher magazine, and Dance Stu-dio Life magazine on how she built her hybrid program of Dance & Circus Arts. The dancers are very excited about the classes! The Harrison seniors and juniors will be closing the performance with the very well received work, Persephone, by guest artist Michael Foley. The performance is March 17, 2018 in the Harrison Theatre at 7 p.m. and will showcase the dancers in Polk County! The Harrison Dance Department continues our partnership with Combee Elementary to provide re-sources and experiences in the art of dance. Lyla Sax-ena, the 2018 Guardian, has done wonderful work with the children this year as has Coleman Brown, 2018 Keeper of the Flame. They teach dance to the first and fifth graders bimonthly. Lyla and Coleman have found this project very fulfilling especially at our last perfor-mance where their students from Combee were filled with wonder and pride to attend the performance and watch their teachers perform. Students were recently treated to a masterclass with Nicole Restani, a company member of Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre in New York. Nicole was in Tam-pa on tour and was gracious enough to come spend the day with our students. The Dance Department is full of excitement in anticipation for our Spring Concerts on April 19 and 20 at 7:00 p.m. in the Harrison Theatre. Make sure you don’t miss it! It promises to be a great evening with something for everyone.

DancePage 5

Students from the Dance Department pose for a picture after their masterclass with Nicole Restani, a company member of Dušan

Týnek Dance Theatre in New York.

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The piano department had a wonderful Winter Piano Concert on January 18, 2018. This concert featured

many exciting solo and ensemble numbers with the Se-nior Ensemble concluding the program with Saint-Saens’, Danse Macabre, in collaboration with senior dancers Eva Atkinson, Talia Demps, Lyla Saxena, and Heaven Taylor. A special thanks to Shelley Bourgeois, Harrison dance instructor, for her choreography, and to Bill Kimble, Har-rison Theatre Tech instructor, for his lighting and special effects. Several of our students performed in the lobby of Youkey Theatre prior to the musical, Dirty Danc-ing. They did a wonderful job and their time and efforts were appreciated by the patrons. Special thanks to Elisa Joyner, Courtney Atkinson, Aidan Lipe, Hector Montal-vo, Chance Scott, Jacob Phelan, and Joelle Mahlan. Chris Suryo, a senior in our department, has or-ganized a group of students to visit nursing homes and share music and companionship. The students have MP3 players with a variety of genres of music to share with the residents. They also share their music by playing for them. I am very proud of Chris for his organization and commitment to this worthy service project. Dr. Jose Lopez, piano professor from Florida In-ternational University in Miami, came and gave a perfor-mance/lecture class to our students prior to his concert at the University of Central Florida. The students were amazed by his technical fluency and interested in hearing about composers of Cuban descent. On March 11, 2018, our piano department will be traveling to Sarasota to hear Yekwon Sunwoo, 2017 winner of the Van Cliburn Piano Competition, play Rach-maninoff’s, Theme of Paganini, with the Cuban National Symphonic Orchestra. Mr. Sunwoo is from South Korea, and at the age of 28, demonstrates tremendous virtuosic skill and passion in his playing. We are all looking for-ward to this inspiring performance.

Piano

The Creative Writing Department had our most heavily-attended reading in the history

of the program on February 15 with a packed house in the Film Theatre. Over 20 readers across all four grade levels shared their work and we also, for the first time, included motion poetry – short “films” created by and based on the work of juniors and seniors. Junior Jillian Kiefer received a Summer Experience Scholarship, which will allow her to spend time at Ringling School for the Arts hon-ing her craft. Very exciting news for her and an-other first for the Creative Writing Department. Two senior creative writing students will be opening for visiting poets at Florida Southern College in March. On Monday, March 12, Ju-lexiua Ellis will be opening for poet John Hop-penthaler, and the following week, on March 19, Breanna Shinn will be opening for Valerie Wallace, who was chosen by Margaret Atwood as the winner of the 2012 Atty Award. Both of these events begin at 5 p.m. and take place in Danforth Chapel. Our first annual (look at all these firsts!!) senior showcase— with the working title Dis(course)||Dis(cord) — will be held this year at Hillcrest Coffee. We are shooting for early to mid-April. More info will be come. Work is rolling forward on the next issue of the newly revamped literary magazine MAG-NETIC and our release party/reading is sched-uled for May 5. Stuart Dischell, a Penguin Poet who has received some of the highest awards in poetry – including a Pushcart Prize, a Guggen-heim Fellowship, and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships – will be our featured poet this year. Two of his pieces will be included in the magazine and he will join us on May 5 to share some of his work. If any of you have any books you would like to donate to the Creative Writing Library or happen to have an old (at least partially work-ing) typewriter laying around, please let email Mr. Parody at clifford.parody@polk-fl.net

Creative Writing

The Senior Piano Ensemble performs Danse Macabre in collaboration with senior dance students.

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Technical Theatre

2018 has started off with a bang. We are grateful for all of the hours our students have put in designing,

building, painting, lighting, and running shows. So far this year, we have loaded in and offered our talents to the world premiere of When You Dream in the Youkey Theatre of the RP Funding Center, provided support for the Winter Piano Concert with a combined effort between Piano, Dance, and Theatre Tech for the Dan-se Macabre piano piece, and provided support for the Alumni Concert. With Cyrano wrapping up and Into the Woods right around the corner, it has certainly been a busy start to the new year! Meanwhile, our New York field trip has been nailed down, securing accommodations, transportation, tours, and shows. A meeting took place on February 26 at 7 p.m. in the Black Box Theatre to go over details. If a concerned parent wasn’t able to attend, pelase contact Mr. Kimble. The Masquerade fundraiser was very success-ful, raising over $4,000 to use for field trips, depart-mental support, and equipment maintenance. Part of our past fundraising has made it possible to purchase a

CNC router to create large scale intricate designs. Additionally, we had a notably strong audition year for the Theatre Tech Department. We can’t say too much, but we are excited for the future of our depart-ment. If you are the parent of a senior, a strong legacy will certainly be maintained. A special shout-out goes to Tilly Barickman who has been selected as a Silver Garland nominee. Good luck with the selection process, Tilly!

William Wilcher (12th grade) works on constructing the set for Cyrano in the Black Box Theatre.

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The Motion Picture Arts Department had two groups of students compete in the 2018 Gasparilla Interna-

tional Film Festival Tampa Bay High School 72 Hour Film Challenge! The students had to report to Tampa by 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 25 to receive their “genre.” They then had 72 hours to write, shoot, and edit a four-minute short film! The films had to be physically delivered back in Tampa by 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, Janu-ary 28. A total of 15 different high school groups from throughout the Tampa Bay area competed. One Harri-son film is titled 3019 and was made by students Hollis Rosenkranz, Kim-Anh Vo, Laura Northup, Marcy Smith, Kanyon Kelleher, and Parisa Shahin. The second Har-rison film is titled Imitation and was made by Joshua Bowen, Liam Gainer, Ben Heacock, Max Losson, and Calyssa Setterberg. On Sunday, February 18, GIFF an-nounced the top 3 films from the challenge and both films from Harrison were listed in the top 3! All three films chosen will play at 2018 GIFF in late March and compete for prizes. Harrison Motion Picture Arts also had six films accepted into the 2018 Boynton Beach Short Film Festi-val! The films accepted were: Daddy Issues, written and directed by Josh Ceranic, Playtime, written and directed by Joshua Bowen, Robbed, written and directed by Hol-lis Rosenkranz, TiAnVica: Riding for Therapy, written and directed by Laura Northup, Until Tomorrow, written and directed by Abby Brown, and Writer’s Block, writ-ten and directed by Hollis Rosenkranz. The 2018 BBSFF will take place April 17-22, 2018 at Alco’s Boynton Cin-ema in Boynton Beach, FL.

Motion Picture ArtsAfter two festive “Music of the Season”

concerts and a restful winter holiday, the Harrison Symphony members started back in January with the Florida Music Educators Convention in Tampa. Participating in All-State Band or Orchestra is one of the highest musical honors given in the state and we are very proud of these students’ achievement! Other events this semester was the Dis-trict Solo and Ensemble Assessment. String players had 49 students performing solos – 3 superiors with distinction, 34 superior ratings, and 9 excellent ratings. Strings had 6 ensem-bles perform – 29 students received superior ratings, 5 student excellent ratings. Wind play-ers had 55 students participate – some in mul-tiple events, with 44 superior ratings and 15 excellent ratings. Congratulations to all! Our annual Harrison Concerto Com-petition was held February 7 in the Harrison Theatre. The competition was won by Saman-tha Flores – she will be performing the first movement of the Mozart Oboe Concerto with the Symphony in April. On February 16, the Harrison Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestra re-ceived straight superiors at the FOA District Music Per-formance Assessment held at Tenoroc High School. Congratulations to these students for their spectacular performances! As always, feel free to contact Mr. Lambert and Mr. Davis with any questions! Be sure to keep up to date with the monthly calendar (https://goo.gl/XdsgKz) as well as following the HSO on Facebook (Harrison Symphony Orchestra). You can also sign up for text message reminders from Remind.com. Type “81010” for the number and type “@hsoorch” in the text space. Upon successfully enrolling, you will be sure to receive the latest information related to all things HSO!

Orchestra

Juniors Hollis Rosenkranz and Kim-Anh Vo film a scene for one of the films with Gavin Geddie, a member of the orchestra department. Hollis and Kim-Anh were two of our students who recently competed in the Gasparilla International Film Festival

Tampa Bay High School 72 Hour Film Challenge.

The Visual Arts Senior Showcase was held at the Polk Museum of Art and was very well received. Oliver

Stephenson was awarded the Polk County Schools Pur-chase Award, and Elisa Ferrer received the Polk Mu-seum of Art Purchase award. This was Elisa’s second piece to be added to the museum’s permanent student collection! The exhibit is on view at the Polk Museum of Art until March 11. Harrison once again had the honor of hosting the Sister Cities International Young Artists and Au-thors Showcase in our gallery. Four of our visual arts students received awards in the competition. Junior Shannon Nichols’ piece took first prize and will go on to Washington D.C. to compete with the rest of the re-gional winners from around the country. Seniors Oliver Stephenson and Hali Mervine were awarded second and third place respectively, and junior Marcela Lim-iera was awarded honorable mention. Cici McMonigle won the Award of Merit in the Florida State Fair High School Art Portfolio Contest sponsored by the Florida Lottery. She received $1000 and recognition from State and Lottery representatives.

Visual Arts

Oliver Stephenson received the Polk County Schools Purchase Award at the Polk Museum of Art.

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Cici McMonigle posing with her scholarship check for winning the Florida State Fair Award of Merit.

A-TeamOn January 30, the Harrison Academic Team (A-Team) competed in the Semi-Final round of the 2018 Polk

County Academic Tournament. Competitions were held at four different locations across the county, and the top two scoring teams from each group advance to the Finals. The Harrison A-Team finished in second place to once again advance to the finals! On February 13, the A-Team traveled to the Bartow Civic Center for the finals. It was a challenging com-petition, and the Harrison team performed admirably. The students worked well as a team and made excellent uses of the “challenge” - where a student can challenge the correctness of another team’s answer or challenge the question itself. Harrison won both challenges they engaged in, earning the team some valuable points. Harrison finished in 3rd place and received a trophy for the school and plaques for each member. Thank you to all of the Harrison family for your continued support of the A-team.

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The Musical Theatre Department is staying on the path as they go Into the Woods. This storybook fan-

tasy is a musical journey with an original story based on several Brothers Grimm fairy tales. A childless baker and his wife set out on a mission to begin a family but must break a Witch’s curse. Their travels bring them to interact with characters from Little Red Riding Hood, Jack & the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and more. The show is a delightful romp with a dose of reality thrown in the mix that makes one question happily ever after. Performances are March 9 and 10 at 7:00 p.m. and March 11 at 2:00. Tickets are on sale through www.harrisonarts.com. A special thanks to all of the parents and volunteers who have made this such a successful rehearsal process. Back in December, members of the Musical The-atre department performed at the Candlelight Proces-sional at Epcot. In addition, the World Choir performed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge as part of their holiday series. In January, members of the musical theatre de-partment performed an original musical written by Dr. Daryl Ward and Tyler Campbell called When You Dream. The original musical about Publix founder George Jen-kins captures the spirit of giving to community and the corporate culture he left behind. The musical debuted at the RP Funding Center during a meeting for the Lake-land Chamber of Commerce in January. An encore per-formance will be given during Act II of the Red Carpet Gala. What if selecting your next musical theatre song or production was as easy as shopping on Ama-zon Prime? This is a question that was the foundation of an energized and dynamic workshop for participants at the Florida Music Educators’ Association conference in

Musical TheatreThe Theatre Department has wrapped Cyra-

no to much positive acclaim. The play, based on the French classic Cyrano de Berger-ac, featured a cast of 27 actors in grades 9-12, running February 23-25 in the Black Box. From the moment patrons arrived in the rotun-da they were transported to 1640s France, the backdrop for the most widely translated play of all time. The production featured a duel of swords and words, a battle for territory and another with the heart, a live string quartet with the assistance of Mr. Davis, and a cast of characters that kept audiences laughing and aaaah-ing, as the spoils of head and heart were revealed. In the rotunda, guests were treated to live piano as they entered Rageuneau’s Patis-serie, along with sweet French delights and red roses with Cyrano’s musings on love. Next on the theatre agenda is a trip to Tampa for the Florida State Thespians Fes-tival. In March, nine students who earned Superior ratings at the District Festival will compete with others from across the state. Harrison Theatre was also thrilled to have senior Isaiah Cowan selected as the Critic’s Choice selection from District 14, which in-cludes five counties. Isaiah will present two contrasting monologues in the Straz Center during the Festival’s opening ceremonies. Class showcases in the Black Box Theatre will round out the spring. Each grade will present a performance featuring the en-tire class, with the themes of the plays com-plimenting Cyrano. We hope to see you in the spring!

Theatre

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The Harrison Jazz Orchestra has had a fantastic first semester and is forging through a terrific second!

On February 8, the HJO extended the streak of great performances, as well as “straight” Superior ratings at the Florida Bandmasters Association District Jazz Music Performance Assessment. Including the Harri-son Jazz Ensembles (pre-2009), this streak has lasted for 18 years! Two jazz combos also performed and re-ceived Superior ratings that evening as well. Jazz students participated in the Florida Band-masters Association District Solo & Ensemble Music Performance Assessment on February 9-10. Students performed either solos or in small ensembles. Along with the HSO Winds and Percussion, 55 HSA events occurred. Many of these students have chosen to go to

the next level and enter their events at the FBA State Solo & Ensemble MPA on March 23 at Lake Nona High School in Orlando, FL. The HJO will be traveling to The Villages to perform a concert for the Jazz Lover’s Society. The concert is scheduled for April 10 at 6 p.m. Students will travel by charter bus and perform a mixture of full band charts as well as combo tunes. Students also per-formed with the Polk All-County Orchestra and will perform with the All-County Band at Florida Southern College on April 12. As always, feel free to contact Mr. Lambert with any questions! Be sure to stay connected with the monthly calendar (https://goo.gl/SwzrQi) and Remind app, as well as following the HJO on Facebook.

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Jazz

Tampa this past January. The workshop, con-ducted by Suzi Lambert and performed by the Harrison School for the Arts Musical Theatre Department, demonstrated how classics of the stage musical can be connected to new, modern hits from Broadway and beyond through char-acter type, compositional features, and a variety of other factors. In addition to class work, students are also getting ready for our showcases in the spring: The Senior Showcase will be on Thurs-day, May 10 and the Underclassman Showcase will be on Friday, May 18, both beginning at 7:00 p.m. The showcases are an opportunity for students to present individual class work and exceptional ensemble work created throughout the school year. Students will be auditioning their showcase pieces as part of their jury the week of April 25-29. In addition to the showcases, our Ju-niors are busily writing the script and creating choreography for their partnership with the Doris Sanders Learning Center. Every year our Juniors teach and perform with the physically and mentally challenged individuals from the center which culminates in a performance at Lakeland’s MayFaire on Saturday, May 12.

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