Millbrook students hit a high note with SUNY Potsdam trip

MILLBROOK — The Millbrook High School Concert Choir showed off its vocal skills recently to the professors and students of SUNY Potsdam. Alexis Clements is the teacher of general and choral music for Millbrook Middle School and Millbrook High School. Under Clements’ direction 31 students from the high school choir were able to travel to SUNY Potsdam for a two-day workshop with Professor Rebecca Reames and SUNY’s Crane Concert Choir. Reames is an associate professor of music at The Crane School of Music at Potsdam. The trip was a part of Crane Concert Choir’s Adopt-a-Choir educational program, which went from Friday, Feb. 10, to Saturday, Feb. 11. The Crane Concert Choir is a mixed ensemble and has performed across the country; it’s even toured in China, having performed at the International Choral Festival in Beijing.“The weekend was an educational experience for both high school and college singers,” said Clements. “Students participated in combined rehearsals on several pieces, received tours of The Crane School of Music and the SUNY Potsdam campus and then saw performances by several of Potsdam’s a cappella groups.” Millbrook students saw three such performances, by: Potsdam Pitches, the all-female A Sharp Arrangement and the all-male Potsdam Pointercounts. All of the a cappella groups are competing in the International Championship of A cappella competition quarterfinals next week at Cornell University.“I really enjoyed listening to the a cappella groups up in Potsdam,” said Izzy Hurley, Millbrook student. “It was inspiring that they were strictly student run and sounded so good. I learned about how to warm up, position yourself and different ways to project to have better tone.”Students also were able to watch the Potsdam Bears women’s hockey team and men’s basketball team compete.Millbrook High School choral students Alison Simmons, Evelyn Grainger, Emily King, Shelby Whalen and Leigh Davis performed their vocal solos in a masterclass led by Crane faculty members Lonel Woods and Deborah Massell. The students performed their solo for the upcoming New York State School Music Association (NYSSMA). They also received feedback from the highly renowned vocal professors while performing in front of both their peers and college students.The weekend ended on a high note. After the students’ hard work at workshops they had a concert performance featuring the Millbrook High School Concert Choir, Potsdam Pointercounts, the Crane Concert Choir and the combined Millbrook and Crane Concert Choirs in Crane’s Hosmer Hall. Millbrook students said the trip was an eye opener for them and helped them see how music can be a part of their future.“If I had not gone on this trip I would have missed a great opportunity to be exposed to such great talent and inspiration,” said Elizabeth Martorano, Millbrook student. “I also feel that if I had not gone I might not have realized my passion for music and singing.”“It made me realize that I want to pursue a career in music, whether it be as a choral student or an instrumentalist, ” said Emily Houston, Millbrook student.“My favorite part of the trip was the interaction I got to have with the experienced signers,” said Millbrook student Maura Shanks. “Every single person I met was extremely friendly and willing to help with any questions that I or anyone else had. All of the professors were so intelligent and everyone was very knowledgeable about music.”Clements said it was an opportunity for Millbrook High School singers that will not soon be forgotten. The choir teacher also thanked the Millbrook administration, Board of Education, parents and the community for their support in making the musical and educational experience possible.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less