Fine Arts Festival Shows Off Artistic Side of Rockhurst Students

“The Festival allows the whole faculty and student body to see another viewpoint or perspective of students and their achievements that sometimes they aren’t able to see,” fine arts department chair and art teacher Tate Owens said.

Owens says the Fine Arts Festival has been a Rockhurst tradition since before he came to Rockhurst in 2006.

This year’s event started with the Concert Choir. The choir was well-orchestrated and all kept their tones very well. This made the audience eager for the rest of the festival, setting the stage for the next portion.

The next performance was a scene from the play “Greater Tuna”. This entire play is a satire intended to highlight the ignorance in a fictional small Texas town. Though short, the audience seemed to greatly enjoy it.

That was followed by a performance by the Jazz Band, which is the upperclassmen band. Their performance featured a solo from senior Kurtis Warren on his tenor saxophone. Before he could perform, however, everyone sang Warren “Happy Birthday,” which riled up the crowd–especially his fellow seniors. Warren’s performance proved calming, though. His solo came amidst a rendition of “Round of Midnight” by Thelonious Monk.

Up next, came videos from teacher Dan Calderon’s moving making class. These videos consisted of a driving safety video, which offered students a realistic but frightening message of safety, horror films, which got a huge rise out of the audience, and finally, a drama film.

“The best part is just seeing the performances,” Owens said. “I love to see all the students’ reactions and watching them, as well as the students that are participating.

“I mean, that’s one reason why we do what we do. If we’re in the fine arts world, we just love to perform and love to see people’s reactions to our performances or work.”

After the movies came the Concert Band, which performed “St. Petersburg March” by Johnnie Vinson. The Concert Band is the underclassmen band at Rockhurst. This ear-pleasing music awed the crowd yet again.
“My favorite part was the Jazz Band and the jazz solo, but I also really loved the Concert Band’s performance as well,” junior Phillip Nunnink said.

To close things out, theater students performed a portion of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged.” The show encapsulated several of Shakespeare’s works within the context of a football game. Although intended to be humorous, this demonstration also helped some students better grasp Shakespeare’s work by relating it to a sport many know and love.
“I learned one of the craziest Shakespeare stories via a football game,” said Nunnink. “Quite a fun and smart way to get the story across.”

“The festival opened my eyes to the large amounts of possibilities students have for expressing themselves,” Nunnink said. “I have always taken Rockhurst as a purely sports based school so it was cool to see how wide it varies.”