Star Spangled News from Nova Middle

Carnegie Hall here we come! Morning newscasts have been enhanced, not only with the skills and technical expertise of Beacon’s Duane Franklin but with the angelic voices and talents of Nova staff and students singing the Star Spangled Banner.

The founder and artistic director of this performance group, Ms, Farryn Weiss, conducted several different performances. Viewers are treated to a version of the choral group alone, the musicians alone, and a few different takes of both groups combined. Staff who showed off their musical talents included: Dr. Garcia on bass guitar, Ms. Thompson on piccolo and Ms. Francis on flute, Ms. Marion on piano, Dr. Hassan on clarinet, Ms. Brown on alto sax, Ms. Fridel on guitar, and not to be overlooked, Mr. Adeshina as our symbol crasher.

“I wish the teachers were louder”, commented Jessie Pirtle. Reactions of students were universally positive and brought smiles to students’ faces. The word used most often to describe student sentiments was “cool”. Austin Stager said, “It’s cool to see them out there, much better than the other [Star Spangled Banner] video.” Our Band Director Ms. Weiss, who has been a band director since 1981 and with Nova for 6 years, waived auditions for this event as she discovered the rich latent talent of available musicians and vocalists.

One of our vocalist’s Ms Heisse, has been singing in choral groups since middle school, all through college, Ms. Thompson, our assistant principal, started playing flute and piccolo in middle school, she continued to play throughout high school and has played semi-professionally in her community for 18 years.

Ms. Weiss’ Symphonic Band musicians participating in the performance were:

Abby Cifuentes, Jennifer Pan, and Charlie Smolic on clarinet; Danika Jackson on tenor sax, Anthony Jaipersaud, Sunny Kim, and Benjamin Schachner on alto sax; Danika Jackson on tenor sax; Zachary Kaplan on baritone sax; Michael Ji Courtney Navarrete and Yuval Shott on percussion; Jungyeon Kim, Jillian Nerenberg on flute; Grace Lee on bassoon; and Shaleen Shaw, Brandon Slotkin and Ryan Scheinkman on trumpet.

Although Nova staff musicians have disbanded for the time being, Ms. Weiss’ symphonic band continues to play together and not only during class. You can check out the band at the Winter Concert on December 12th and at the Winter Festival of Music at the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood international Airport on December 4th.

Dr. Marion Hernandez, Nova Zone PR Contact