Sacred Heart Academy showcases Artist in Residence program

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Students at Sacred Heart Academy showcased the culmination of their lessons with the Youth Singers of Calgary to their families, Jan. 10 creating a concert-type venue at the school.

The Youth Singers of Calgary were brought in to partner with the school through the Artist in Residence program. 

This created an opportunity for students to spend the previous week being exposed to music and choreography lessons to develop their singing, dancing, and performance skills, as well as to give them an outlet to build confidence, and expose them to fine arts. 

“Youth Singers of Calgary had been in Sacred Heart Academy all week. We sent two professional artists, a musician and a choral director, as well as a choreographer. With each class, they worked on learning a song, how to sing it, as well as perform it, and add dance and choreography,” said Megan Emmet, CEO of Youth Singers of Calgary. “Together, those things allow most kids to find a great way to enter into some new skills and confidence, taking up space, performing, as well as working on their vocal skill, get some dance literacy in there, and we find it is just a lot of fun and a great way to bring a high level of educational value (and) professional experience to kids in schools.”

This year marks the first time Sacred Heart Academy has partnered with the Youth Singers of Calgary to operate an Artist in Residence program. 

It was largely financed through fundraising efforts within the school, particularly through the results of the Spell-a-thon.

The lessons offered to students consisted of four 45-minute to one-hour lessons spread throughout the course of the week, before presenting to their families on the Friday. 

“We value bringing in experts from outside of the school for the fine arts because there is a very broad variety of arts available to children and they all have very different and unique styles of being who they are,” said Tashina Mackenzie, music specialist with Sacred Heart Academy. “To bring in experts from other fields within fine arts brings them a rounder, more in-depth understanding of what the arts has to offer both for them personally, but also educationally.”

Mackenzie added for the majority of students, they tend to greatly enjoy the opportunity to shine and perform.

One aspect of the program this year, is that the students were instructed by male performing artists, which Mackenzie explained was a very different experience than usual. 

This created a space both for male students to see men in performing arts, as well as to learn more about male vocal range as opposed to only having a female teacher, which she added is very atypical.