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Spring Arts Festival

2024 TASIS Spring Arts Festival

Under the direction of TASIS Founder M. Crist Fleming, who was an ardent supporter of the arts, former faculty members Horst Dürrschmidt and Fernando Gonzales established the TASIS Spring Arts Festival in 1974. Held near the end of each school year, the festival is, in addition to a community-wide celebration of the arts, a final assessment for students in visual arts, theater, and music. It aims to celebrate and support the unique contributions that the arts and humanities make to TASIS life while offering an opportunity to showcase, through both performance and exhibition, the arts across the Elementary, Middle, and High Schools.

Performing Arts Department Chair Erika Cramp, Visual Arts Department Chair Martyn Dukes, all of the teachers involved in the arts at TASIS, and our many talented student artists shared their incredible work with the TASIS community from May 13–19. See an archive of the content below.

Festival Content

Spring Arts Festival Opening Assembly

MAY 13, PALESTRA

This assembly served as the official opening of the 2024 Spring Arts Festival and was designed to provide students a preview of what is to come throughout the week.


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Middle School Drama Class Performances

May 13, Palmer Cultural Center, 18:30

Written and performed entirely by Middle School students, these three original plays—A Midwinter Night's Dream: The Musical!, DaMarcus DaRobot, and Masked Mischief—showcased characters, storylines, and comedic moments that sprung solely from the remarkable creativity of students in Mr. Matthew Frazier-Smith’s drama classes.


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Elementary School Conducting Workshop

May 14, Palmer Cultural Center, 10:00

Students in Ms. Melody Zanecchia’s 5th-grade music classes were instructed by Maestro Andrea Cupia for an Introduction to Conducting Workshop that provided them with the special opportunity to conduct members of the Opera ViVa Orchestra. The repertoire included excerpts from famous works by Aaron Copland, Maurice Ravel, and George Gershwin.

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Advanced Piano Recital

May 14, Palmer Cultural Center, 17:15

Five of our most accomplished High School pianists from the studio of Ms. Angela Perini beautifully performed classic works from Schubert, Debussy, Moszkowski, Aalampour, Chopin, and Liszt.


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SEE THE PROGRAM


 

Visual Art Exhibition

THURSDAY, MAY 16–SUNDAY, MAY 19 
Palmer Cultural Center and Şahenk Fine Arts Center (Horst Dürrschmidt Gallery)

This year’s Visual Art Exhibition included a wide variety of artworks produced by Elementary School students (guided by Ms. Caroline Rossi); Middle School students (Ms. Simona Bellini and Ms. Brigit Hurst); High School students in the disciplines of drawing and painting (Mr. Martyn Dukes), photography (Ms. Chrissie Wild), architecture and design (Mr. Mark Aeschliman), and ceramics (Ms. Hurst); and faculty artists. Click on the buttons below to see photos and to take a walk through the entire exhibition!

SEE A 3D SCAN OF THE EXHIBITION

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Performing Arts Showcase: Dream

SUNDAY, MAY 19, RSI Studio, 15:00 and 17:30

The capstone event of the 2024 TASIS Spring Arts Festival, this spectacular performing arts showcase was held at the RSI Studio in Lugano on the afternoon of May 19 and featured more than 200 singers, players, actors, and dancers from the TASIS community!

Guided by Director of Performing Arts Erika Cramp and a dedicated team of performing arts teachers, students from the TASIS Elementary School, Middle School, High School, and Faculty performed beautifully in the showcase, which told the story of an adult struggling with writer's block who discards his ideas on pieces of paper. These discarded dreams are then picked up by the performers and brought to life across several mesmerizing acts that traverse aquatic, sky, terrestrial, fantastical, and cosmic worlds in a celebration of creativity and performance. 

Click on the links below to see photos, watch the full performance, watch a highlight video, and learn who was involved in this highly ambitious showcase. 

 


SEE THE PROGRAM

SEE PHOTOS


 

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