Palmer Trinity School

bird's eye view Choir at PTS: One Year, A World of Difference Coming to us from the Miami Dade College Music Department, Mr. Tim Lester started as Performing Arts Chair and Choral Director at Palmer Trinity School just last year. Faced with a choral program that only had 19 members—including an Upper School Choir with only three students—Mr. Lester knew he needed to do some heavy recruiting. Through his work with the Palmer Trinity School musical last spring, and seeking out talent from the entire student body, Mr. Lester was able to increase program membership by eleven students this year—expanding the Upper School Choir alone from three to sixteen members. As a result of his efforts—and the hard work of our talented student musicians—today, our choral program is at a new level of excellence; impressing audiences statewide with their clear voices, perfect harmonies and a distinct musicality atypical of singers their age. Having worked extensively with both high school and college students, Mr. Lester believes Palmer Trinity School students are talented in ways he has never seen. "I taught college for eleven years and high school for four years and never saw this much musical ability concentrated into one place," he says. "I can give these students a new piece and they will have it learned in just a matter of days." Already putting on concerts for both the school and local community, the Palmer Trinity School Singers were also selected, after an audition process, 2011-2012 Upper School Choir (L-R: Paulina to perform for the public Acebal, Leo Rocchiccioli, and Karenne Koessler). 2012-2013 Palmer Trinity Singers at Walt Disney World's Downtown Disney in January 2013. Most importantly, throughout their success, these students have been able to practice what Mr. Lester believes is the most powerful component of singing: expression. "In my opinion, there is no instrument quite like the human voice," he says. "It can exhibit raw emotion, display intense joy or deep sadness. Everyone likes to sing—even if only in the shower—and we can connect to each other in a manner that is impossible otherwise." Having grown so much in such a short amount of time, what's still in store for these student musicians? "Over the next five years, my main focus will be attempting to continue the growth in numbers," Mr. Lester says. "If the growth continues, I would love to be able to take the Upper School groups to wonderful festivals, perhaps even in Europe. That would be just amazing." PTS Theatre: 40 Years and Still Growing By: Phebe Hibshman, PTS Theatre Department In recent years, the Palmer Trinity School Theatre Department has developed in a myriad of ways, putting on multiple shows a year for school and community audiences, and producing theatre students that have left the confines of Palmer Trinity School to pursue acting at impressive levels. Producing Check Please, Anatomy of Gray, Into the Woods, Drop Dead Juliet, Urinetown, A Midsummer Night's Dream, A Little Princess and Once Upon a Mattress in the past few years alone— which included casts of both middle and upper school students, as well as staff and faculty members—our student thespians also performed in various showcases and all-school assemblies. Placing an emphasis on all aspects of production, both on and off the stage, we now offer a costume and make-up class that allows students to create designs for our various productions and festivals. Always keeping service in mind, these designs are also used at our annual fashion shows—the proceeds of which benefit Broadway Cares Equity Fights Aids. Cassandra Plunkett '16, Isabella Victoriano '14 and Brenda Quesada '15 in the PTS production of "The Skin of Our Teeth" 12 Promoting an "ensemble" approach to performance and technical theater that encourages the students to work as a team, we—as a department—also collaborated with the PTS English and Art Departments to produce The Skin of Our Teeth earlier this year. In January 2013, we will host James and the Giant Peach, a show both acted, and produced entirely by middle school students. Through these activities and more, our thespians not only put on wonderful productions, but they also bond with one another and form close, lasting friendships. Today, Palmer Trinity School is proud to have multiple Alumni from the PTS Theatre Department acting on an even larger scale. With three Alumni admitted into prestigious acting programs at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and the University of Southern California, Alumna Katherine Wood '05 in her senior year at The Julliard School acting program, and Dexter Carr '09 currently dazzling audiences in his Broadway debut of Bring It On: The Musical, the Palmer Trinity School Theatre Department looks forward to the next forty years—and the tremendous success it is sure to bring.

• Cover