February 2023

Celebrating Music Every Day

Visit MacLaren during the school day and you are almost certain to hear music—energetic voices singing in one hallway, strings warming up to scales in another, and a variety of student performances featured at morning assemblies. At MacLaren, music education is an integral part of the core curriculum and a daily experience for students at every stage.

This commitment to making music is one of many areas that makes a MacLaren education so distinct: the community of learners working in literal harmony to create beauty together. This is not a spectator sport! As Mortimer Adler puts it in Paideia Proposal, “The best way to understand a piece of music is to sing or play it…. Participation in the creation of works of art is as important as viewing, listening to, and discussing them. All children should have such pleasurable experiences.” Music, like all aspects of a liberal arts education, is a good in itself—it needs no other justification. And yet we see all the many benefits that also flow from it.

Whether learning music through vocal instruction in the Lower School, or the Upper School orchestra program, music education further equips students in the pursuit of becoming fully human and fully awake to the world.

Lower School students receive six years of music training using the Kodály method. Named for a Hungarian composer and teacher, the method is designed to help students fall in love with music, using the human voice as the primary instrument. Students start by learning folk songs and later progress to composed music. Applying a child development approach, music literacy becomes accessible for even the youngest students. Students learn that music is meant to be enjoyed and singing together is a joyful exercise.

Fourth graders perform in the gym, while second graders learn a new song.

Both kindergarten and fifth grade students enjoy exploring rhythm instruments.

Rhythm instruction uses clapping, marching, and percussion instruments to teach concepts of proportion, pattern, and ratio. These skills translate to math learning, but also incorporate students' ability to learn through play. Whether singing in the classroom, the hallways, or performing for parents, students grow as listeners, creative thinkers and collaborators.

Rising MacLaren sixth graders have much to look forward to—lockers, new classes, and especially a stringed instrument. Upper School students receive seven years of orchestra instruction, immersing them in a culture of music appreciation. Dr. Keith Redpath explains of the program, "It takes them from scratch—learning to hold the instrument and playing simple melodies in unison such as French Folk Song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star—to playing complex Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern works by such established composers as Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and Holst."

MacLaren's orchestra faculty share their passion for music and care for students in class daily. Several instructors hold advanced degrees and additionally share their love of music through performances in the community.

Fine Arts Night, held twice a year, provides Upper School students the opportunity to perform together as an orchestra in a formal setting.

As part of the orchestra, students learn teamwork, belonging and interdependence. In playing music together, students understand that each role is important and contributes to creating beautiful music. In preparing for Fine Arts Night, students put in countless practice hours. Some express growing in confidence and self-esteem at persevering to play a difficult piece and perform it alongside their classmates.

Eleventh grader Ryan Rodriguez says MacLaren's orchestra program has improved his hand-eye coordination, listening skills and sense of surroundings. He shares, "In orchestra, you read music as you go, use both hands to play the piece at a certain tempo, while listening well to classmates in other sections."

These skills translate naturally to other environments. For Rodriguez, musical training has benefited him athletically and emotionally. "That sense of awareness and surrounding has helped me in basketball—dribbling, shooting, and knowing where my teammates are on the court." It's also an outlet to reduce stress and anxiety. He says, "playing music gives me a sense of calm."

The MacLaren String Quartet performs at The Warehouse Restaurant. At the Lower School Community Singalong, students demonstrate the solfège hand signs as part of the Kodály method, a visual aid for singing up and down the scale.

Our Vision

We believe all students should be immersed in the best our tradition has to offer. We believe all students can be active and useful participants in the ongoing and enduring conversation that is a vibrant civilization. We believe all students can be formed in a habitual vision of greatness that makes lifelong learners of the doctor and the mechanic, the homemaker and the professor. Thomas MacLaren School strives to build a lasting community of learners in which each student is the agent of his or her education.



Our Mission

From the seminar to the science lab, from the music room to the playing field, we begin with the conviction that all human beings can know truth, create beauty and practice goodness. To that end, we expect students to develop basic tools of learning, ordered basic knowledge, moral seriousness, breadth and depth of imagination, artistic ability and sensitivity, and a sense of wonder.

We believe all students can be active and useful participants in the ongoing and enduring conversation that is a vibrant civilization. Jacques Maritain, the French philosopher, described education as a human awakening. The goal of Thomas MacLaren School is to develop young men and women who are fully human and fully awake to the world.