Students Dazzle at Fine Arts Show

rThe students from the Fine Arts departments at St. Ansgar High School held their annual showcase on Tuesday, where this semester’s artistic endeavors in the visual and performing arts were put on display.  

Patrons roamed among and viewed the dozens of pieces of art on display, from oil pastel and pencil to sculpture, photography and graphic design, many types of media were submitted by the students for the show, much of which they will also submit for the upcoming conference art show in Forest City next week. Visual Arts is instructed by Luke Nielsen. 

The choir students demonstrated their pieces that they will perform at next week’s large group contest and recognized musicians for their success at small group contest, including the bass and treble clef choirs, and Theo Baldus, who was selected as outstanding performer.

Choir Director Chris Haacke gave a heartfelt send off to the choir after one year with the program, “It was a blessing to work with these young adults and watch them grow as musicians together.” Haacke will retire this year and will pass the director’s baton to Marena (Bartz) Henkle.  r

rAbby Wold and Jade Thomas each presented their division I-earning pieces from state speech, Wold performing the acting piece “My Trip to the State Penn” and Thomas delivering the after-dinner speech “A Princess Rant”, both ladies brought the house down with laughter delivering the humorous monologues.

  The drama students to the Fine Arts Show with a filmed piece “St. Ansgar News Now”, an original parody newscast that was pre-taped and displayed at the show along with the other student short films submitted for state speech, “Hunted” and “Algebra”.  Speech is coached by Randy Mogk, and Drama by Alex Schmidt. 

The concert band closed the show with their portion, demonstrating the pieces they will perform for comments at the large group band contest later this month, “Abington Ridge”, “Ammerland”, and “Joy”. The band is under the direction of Lauren Heiberger. r

rOur small school allows for student participation in a variety of extra-cirricular activities, and most all students involved in the Fine Arts at St. Ansgar keep busy juggling school work, multiple sports, and many hold down jobs to boot. But, studies show students exposed to the arts and allowed to have a creative outlet during the school day are proven to have improved academic performance and can increase positive forms of expression. 

Great work to all the artists, directors and to the school as a whole for their continued efforts towards providing quality artistic education for our students.