VERDUN SCHOOL NEWS

BEURLING ACADEMY: It was the music that made the world turn ‘round and Gary Lindner and his stellar group of musicians let us hear some of those great songs again, but not trying to recreate, but to make them their own and it worked like a charm. It was a night to salute the music of the Fab Four, aka The Beatles, the greatest group of all-time who were the voices of a generation.

BA’s lineup of vocalists were all in fine shape from Samantha Cambridge, who might be next year’s Sec 5 star singer, singing Across the Universe to Kayla Vardon who was in powerful form with I Wanna Hold Your Hand to Susan Young’s interesting rendition of Let it Be with the whole senior band and with that song’s familiar piano intro by Taylor Scott Covey.

Samantha Cambridge came back later soloing on keyboards singing “Come Home” and Susan Young, who seems to have found a perfect niche of that of a potential jazz/blues lounge singer a la Dinah Washington/ Billie Holliday when she also came back to sing with emotion Bonnie Raitt’s classic I Can’t Make you Love Me accompanied Gary Lindner on the keys.

A product of the VE music program under Jennifer Hayden, Amanda Pidlisny, gave us excellent flute solos of All My Loving and 8 Days a Week. All bands sounded great playing such classics as: My Funny Valentine, Theme from Rocky, Bohemian Rhapsody and a groovy Beurling Blues. It must be said the Sec 2 band showed their amazing progress and is poised to win big if entered into next year’s Jazzfest du Quebec.

The frustration of Gary Lindner showed though, when he spoke about the scheduling changes in the upper grades, in particular the IBO’s puzzling decision to remove music as a fine arts option which has resulted in students having to make agonizing decisions about which courses to choose and decimating the music ranks in the senior grades, and jeopardizing the music program. Students Mylissa Koeppe and Zack Scholes were accepted into the Vanier music program thus being proof it can be an entry into higher education. This will be an interesting item to follow.

From teacher Tamara Beach, we hear of a successful Anti-Smoking Slogan and Logo contest for all grades held last month with lots of creativity with 10 students winning $25.00 gift certificates from Best Buy and congrats go out: Katelyn Leggo, Vanessa Wall, Justin Parker, Andrew Patton, Austin James, Vanessa Robert, Steven LaBelle, Alicia Cross, Susan Young and Brittany Williams.

As well this week, it will be the Annual Awards evenings with excellence in various subjects and endeavors being recognized with Cycle 2 night this Monday and the Cycle 1 this coming Thursday.

From teacher Natalie Lalonde, we hear of more good news. Her grade 4 students were awarded a grant for a photo project from the “Comptable Agreé du Quebec”, the students used a documentary “Born into Brothels” for this project where each child received disposable cameras and taught the basics of photography. Assignments focused on specific subjects providing a structure to discipline the children while encouraging them to be free to explore and discover how they see the world. Field trips to local sites, such as Chinatown were integrated into the project with color and culture giving way to magnificent portraits. The results of their work will be display at a Vernisage at the school on Tuesday, June 17th from 6:30 pm to7:30 pm where both parents and members of the community are invited to attend.