Arts

At BB&N the arts are a vital component of each student’s education. Through a wide range of courses, guest artists, and extracurricular offerings, students are exposed to both the performing and the visual arts. We encourage all students to get involved, to take risks, and to discover a personal connection to their art. The arts curriculum moves from learning technical skills in each discipline to developing an understanding of the expressive and conceptual possibilities of art. The goal of the program is for students to gain a greater awareness of the place of art in human experience and their immediate community. Our location in Cambridge makes it easy for many teachers to use the performances, galleries, and museums of the Greater Boston area as a springboard for their curriculum. In addition, our special collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, means that all BB&N students get to know that spectacular collection, only a 10-minute drive from our campuses.

At the Middle School, the arts are a part of each student’s day, whether the student is singing in the chorus, painting, working with clay, playing in an ensemble, or rehearsing for a play.

Grade 7: Each student is exposed to all art offerings: drama, music, and a three-dimensional and two-dimensional visual arts course. Each teacher focuses on aspects of their discipline, encouraging experimentation and risk taking..

Students in three-dimensional art focus on sculpture in clay and on gaining an understanding of the material. Students study different cultures (e.g. Art of the Pueblo People and American Sculpture of the 20th Century) as a mode of discovering history through art.

Classes in two-dimensional art focus on drawing and painting, color-mixing, and using a variety of materials. Students connect their work to art history with projects that include still-life drawings, paintings from nature, and paintings inspired by 19th- and 20th-century artists.

In drama, improvisation and theater games form the basis of the course, teaching students to trust their creative instincts and encourage the instincts of others. Students progress to scene study, where they interpret and dramatize various texts. Students discuss the role of theater in their community, learn to use personal experience to inform their work on stage, and end the quarter with a performance for all of Grade 7.

In general music classes, students are challenged to question and explore their musical experiences and attitudes toward traditional and popular music. Curricular goals include rhythm and pitch notation, basic harmonic theory and composition, and score reading. The singing voice gets emphasis when students learn vocal physiology. The class ends the quarter with a group vocal performance.

Grade 8: Students participate in concentrated immersion in two semester-long arts courses that meet four times a week. Students participate in a visual arts course for one semester and performing arts course for one semester. Exposure to a wide variety of artistic expression makes discovering an area in which they can excel easier for students. Students choose from two-dimensional art, three-dimensional art, drama, and music; electives may include wheel-thrown pottery, hand-building in clay, printmaking, painting, drawing, Knight Music (a show choir), music composition, MidKnight Players (a musical revue), jazz history, and playwriting.

Chamber, Jazz Band, and Chorus: In the Middle School, students may participate in chorus, chamber ensembles, or the jazz band, with permission of the teacher.