Congratulations, SPARK 5th Graders! We're SO Proud of You!

Friday, May 23, 2025 was a blast. Here are two versions of our Awards Day Songs!

Each student (or partnership) helped create a Canva presentation for the lyrics for Growing Up by The Linda Lindas

And here is the live action video, featuring our house band, singers and dancers!

Front view, thanks to Rachel Kyzer

I am really going to miss this group of 5th graders. They are bright, kind, inclusive, and hilarious.

 

Congratulations, SPARK Seniors! We're so proud of you!

 Check out the playlist of music you made when you were at SPARK! 

The Music@SPARK Chorus and AC perform Connections Tues, May 20 at 6pm

Please join Music@SPARK Chorus & AC on Tuesday, May 20 at 6pm for our hometown performance of 

Connections

. This is a show we created to perform at the 

Georgia Music Educators Conference 

in Athens, GA Jan 31, 2025 

and we want to bring the show home! 
Each song in the concert was chosen to connect to academic content, especially STEAM, and our students developed extra-musical ideas to help demonstrate and clarify the purpose of each song. 

Chorus/AC call time for singers is 4pm, dressed and ready to warm up and run through. Doors will open at 5:45pm for the audience. You won't want to miss this event!

 

#FAN25 Fine Arts Night

Thursday, April 24 from 4:30-6:30pm! 

 Art in the Gym! Music in the Cafeteria!  

Videos and photos below!

also, Louise, Reese, Eliza performed Shimmer & Shine

If you have videos or photos you'd like to add, share them with Ms. Turgeon HERE

                                                                               

Then during the weekend, we had the Inman Park Festival Parade with the tiniest marching band, ever, thanks to Lulu, Norah C, Norah K, Simran, and Zachary

And Ms. Turgeon performed with the ASO Chorus on the Family Concert Out of this World!

We sang "The Duel of the Fates" from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

A Visit from the Atlanta Opera

 Our students were charmed and enchanted when The Atlanta Opera brought their studio tour to SPARK! PreK, Kindergarten, First, and Second Graders got to see an amazing collaboration between the Opera and The Center for Puppetry Arts as they brought Mozart's The Magic Flute to life!

Look at the reactions on the students' faces!

LGPE Success!

Thank you so much to Alicia Cardillo for the videos and transcription from Mr. Charles Claiborne, our Sight Singing judge. Our singers felt proud and their hard work paid off. 

Performance #1:

 https://photos.app.goo.gl/9S5sh22837v8T3pj8

Performance #2

https://photos.app.goo.gl/vaqQZtVtoHEC23CE8

Sightreading piece: 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/5CEssn58KKEYkYkU8

Young ladies & gentlemen,

My name is Mr. Claiborne. I've been a teacher for 50 years. I taught in high school, I never taught elementary school. What I heard today, I listened to your performance, and I found it extraordinary. You young people have been taught to sing with sophistication, with diction tone and energy. I see y'all, the parents. What's going on is not usual. What's going on at this point is that this person here, these children's teacher, is not the norm. It is special. I hope you all understand that. You understand that who are to be where you are <words I can't quite tell what he is saying> and I am so glad that this was the last person, the last group that we heard today. It was a nice performance. Thank you very much for coming.

From Ms. Turgeon:

I was surprised and completely honored by Mr. Claiborne's words—he'd been judging all day and we were the final folks he heard. He is well known in the Chorus circles in Georgia and sort of a legend, so his words of praise were deeply meaningful. Our work would not be successful if we didn't have parents and administrators and community who support our work, so Dr. Toney, Dr. Erickson (our APS Fine Arts Director),  Millie Turek (our accompanist and my mentor who taught me how to teach sight singing), Ameeta (Aarav's mom and our violinist), and Arietha Lockhart (our recorder player and my ASO Chorus sister since 1992) and the HARD work of the kids made it all happen. Our GMEA show was Connection, because ALL of those folks are the reason for any success. I am so lucky to work with our amazing students who inspire me and who work hard to make music and help SPARK shine.

SPARK Third Grade field trip: Hearing an ASO String Quartet

On Wednesday, Feb 12 our Third Graders went to the Woodruff Arts Center to hear a string quartet from the ASO play. We heard Mozart's String Quartet 22 in its entirety, and the students loved hearing insight and the different themes and background information about why it was written.

Students were also treated to a backstage/administrative office tour, including having an up-close look at some of the Grammy Awards won by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus!