Music plays as third through sixth grade students come across the threshold into the music room. Selections such as Clara Schumann’s Valses Romantique, Carole King’s Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, America from Sondheim’s West Side Story, Duke Ellington’s Satin Doll, John Cage’s Telephone and Birds, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and Marian Anderson’s version of Gospel Train, are just samples of the variety of styles and artists that Plymouth Meeting Friends School students are exposed to during the course of any given year.
The singing experience at PMFS includes songs of many cultures and styles. There are two vocal concerts each year, our Thanksgiving Program and our Winter Holiday Program. Through these all- school performances, all PMFS students have the opportunity to perform with their class for parents, grandparents, and friends.
Each September, PMFS students study one composer or musician in depth. They learn about composers’ lives, works, creative processes, personal and professional relationships, the time in which they lived, and the impact of the times upon their work. Through an in-depth study of a musician or composer, students make meaningful connections to the person and therefore their music. Students are encouraged to do projects about the composer and present them to the class. By the end of the year, it is not unusual for students to refer to the Musician of the Year by his or her first name.
In the second semester, PMFS students study one opera or musical. Porgy and Bess, The Sound of Music, The Medium, Fiddler on the Roof, and Wicked are a few of the most recent units. Form, style and elements of story are covered. Students are also given keyboard basics in this last half of the year and are asked to perform their student-composed compositions on electronic keyboards.