Legacy Traditional School prepares for May musical

Legacy Traditional School celebrated Music in Our Schools Month in March by opening up music and theater classes in the Mozart Performing Arts Program at the school’s Cadence campus to the news media.

The campus, in Henderson, opened this school year, and musical director Michael Erickson said the Mozart program is thriving.

The program is made up of third- through eighth-graders. In third grade, students receive four days of music classes that include piano and recorder. Fourth- through sixth-graders go into band, with brass, woodwind and percussion instruments or orchestra, with string instruments and take classes in either group two days a week. In seventh and eighth grades, students decide among theater class, choir, orchestra, chamber orchestra or band. They train in that discipline five days a week.

On March 28, the theater class was preparing for a “Moana” performance with the choir and on paired scenes for its theater final.

“I treat these kids above a high school level, more like a college-level class,” Erickson said. “I tell them, in eight weeks you have this due and I’ll give you time to work on it, but you have to have it ready to go and it works for them.”

Grace Wilkins, 12, is part of both the theater class and the choir class. She is in seventh grade and plans to become a teacher and an actor.

“It’s fun because you get to work with different people and explore different things …” Grace said.

Grace performed her paired scene with Dean Withem, “Remember the Burrito,” in front of the 20-student classroom. After, Erickson and other students gave them feedback.

“This is a safe space to explore and be creative. No one is going to judge or point and laugh at you; we are going to go with you and build off what you’ve done,” Erickson said.

The theater class helped Jayden Siova, 13, overcome her shyness and be more confident about performing.

“At the beginning of the year, I refused to go up in front of people,” Jayden said. “I will go up now, but I’ll still be nervous and scared.”

Jayden said she wanted to join the theater class to “become somebody that people might pay attention to.”

Joi Deloney, 13, also remembers being shy before joining the theater class, “but it is easy and comes with a lot of opportunities.”

Contact Rachel Spacek at 702-387-2921 or rspacek@reviewjournal.com. Follow @RachelSpacek on Twitter.