RE Log Spring 2023

SPRING 2023 Ransom Everglades LOG 29 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! Photos by Suzanne Kores and Carl Kafka