This week, the band will have the busiest week of their marching season. The Apple Festival is starting, and so are the many parades, performances, and special events. Even though Oak Hill students get that Wednesday off to have fun at the festival, the Marching Oaks must still march in the 11:00am parade and perform on the stage around 12:30pm. On Thursday, practice for the community band will continue after being cancelled for the past couple weeks. On Friday, the Marching Oaks will travel to Waverly to cheer on the football team as they go against the Waverly Tigers. They will be performing their “Movie” show for halftime. On Saturday, the Marching Oaks have their busiest day of the week. In the morning, they will perform at Jackson’s band show along with many other bands. After the band show, the Marching Oaks will have some free time to spend at the festival with their friends until the most exciting parade begins. Around 7:00pm, the final and longest parade will take place. In this parade, each band will be judged and placed depending on how well they marched and performed. Everyone is encouraged to watch the parade and cheer on each band as they march by.

This week, the Oak Hill Marching Oaks will be hosting the first band show of the year. This is their 21st annual band show, and many bands around the area are invited to show up and present their shows. A band from Columbus has 250 people alone, and will be the star of the show. The Jackson Marching Ironmen will also be present at the band show. The Marching Oaks will be showing off their exciting feature that they do every year. Each year, they turn off all the stadium lights and march in the dark. They also put on LED bracelets for a cool effect. The band show will take place on Saturday, September 19th at 7:00pm. Those who want to support the Marching Oaks and other hard working musicians should plan to attend. The Marching Oaks will also be traveling to South Gallia to cheer on the Oaks football team. They will be presenting their “Movie” show, which includes the Superman theme song, “Fame,” and a theme song from Harry Potter. As marching season is halfway through being over, the Marching Oaks will still continue to give their “110%” in everything they do, and are excited to soon present their last couple shows at the end of the season! 

As of this week, the Oak Hill choirs are working hard for their concerts and any events. This week the high school choir finally got GOD BLESS AMERICA and are going to start working on it this week for the Veteran’s Day assembly which will come later this semester. The middle schoolers are not going to perform in the Veteran’s Day assembly, but they will get to perform at the Esteddfod and obviously their Christmas and spring concert. As of now, the choir is still planning to sing GOD BLESS AMERICA and THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER for the Veteran’s Day assembly. The Esteddfod will also be this semester, but will be before Thanksgiving break. The middle school choir is working on some totally different things compared to the high schoolers. As the high school choir works on Welsh, blending, getting louder and softer at times, and dynamics, the middle school choir works on ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT for the Eisteddfod. The middle schoolers will work on this throughout the semester until the day comes for them to sing, and eventually, they will get music for the Christmas concert.

The high school choir is still getting ready for this fall. Mrs. King has already confirmed an honors choir this year, hopefully many students will go. On another note, the high schoolers are still working on previous music and are starting to get into the AFRICAN CHRISTMAS SPIRITUAL  song. For their Christmas concert, the boys (basses and tenors) will have one separate song from the girls and vice versa. The girls are planning to sing MARY DID YOU KNOW for their song, but it isn’t set in stone. A recap of the previous articles is that the high school and middle school choirs are starting to get the Christmas concert in their heads and both are still practicing for the Eisteddfod. Their choir president (Skylee Mullins) has taught the Welsh verses of the song IESU YW, and the high school choir are getting better at it with every day that passes. Meanwhile, the middle school choir students are still learning basic stuff and probably learning how to sight read and how to read music. The basics include voice placements, getting their notes right which is also why they are learning to read music and learning the differences between bass and treble clef. 

The drama class had been spending the majority of their time ripping apart thrifted white bibbers into strips. Each part of the bibbers is to be used as the fabric intended to help the drama class create sets of costumes. The director, Katherine King, supplies her students with scissors and seam rippers to quite literally pull the fabric into strips. The parts that are unable to be used: the zipper, straps, and buttons, are thrown away accordingly. With roughly thirty bibbers, there will be a large amount of fabric the students will use to sew into crude patchwork robes for the gargoyle characters in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” to wear. These gargoyles represent the seven deadly sins that influence Quassimoto both positively and negatively. They are more so characters who “stir the pot” than characters to be taken too seriously. The costumes will be reminiscent of Catholic disciples in an unorthodox way. The students have also been finishing Act II of  “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” where the atmosphere and overall mood are much more grim, dark, and dramatic than Act I. The gargoyles are important side characters who constantly reappear throughout the musical. In the beginning, they’re more playful and fun…then they turn to a much more serious side in their characteristics. 

After Mrs. King's absence on Monday, she returned in a good mood. The class was given time to finish whatever they needed to do for their earlier assignments for the day. This included finishing the remaining performances and our vision boards. The first scene, performed by Rebecca Toth and Haily McIntosh, was a comedy: Athena transforming into an elderly man. The disguised goddess confronted the mighty Telemachus and had been given a task he couldn’t refuse. The humorous scene ends as Telemachus sets off on his journey. The final scene, performed by Heaveni Brown and Bailey Shots, is a drama surrounding a young woman and her mother. The girls grew heated in a verbal argument, each aggressive and emotional in their own perspectives. The girl wishes to find her own love, and the mother thinks she knows best for her daughter, for money’s sake. The emotional girl then leaves the room to do the dishes in place of her mother, concluding the scene. In the vision boards, each student had to apply images to what the costumes, hair, backgrounds, and makeup need to/should look like for the upcoming musical, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” They are to scavenge the internet to provide what they believe is accurate to the set categories. When completed, every student gets to present their vision boards and explain the reason behind each image. Every category should have at least three to four images each to show their vision of one or more characters and settings. 

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is an oil on canvas painting made by French painter Georges Seurat in 1884. Located in the heart of Paris is the Island of La Grande Jatte, a weekend getaway for citizens throughout the 19th century. This island is forever immortalized through Seurat's work of art. At first glance, the painting depicts a scene of many enjoying their relaxing day out and about. Children are at play, a woman is taking her pet monkey on a walk, and a man smokes his pipe. When you get closer to the painting, you see what's truly shocking about it. The technique he used caught everyone by surprise. Rather than using traditional brushstrokes like every other painter of the time, he opted for placing millions of meticulously placed pixel-like dots to make the scene up. This technique came to be known as Pointillism, which relied on optics. Seurat believed that rather than just mixing his colors on a palette regularly, he placed the dots and relied on the human eye to blend the work. The creator of this work required large amounts of precision, patience, as well as dedication. Steuart spent over 2 years bringing his idea to life for its rigid geometric pattern, which does not look like it from afar. Today, the piece resides at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it continues to shock people every day. Steuart proved that art can be a science if you have self-discipline. Source

The Arnolfini Portrait is an oil-on-oak panel painting by Jan Van Eyck, completed in 1434. It is a full-length double portrait that depicts Arnolfini and his wife. This painting was ahead of its time because of its sheer level of detail, which was uncommon in this era. Taking a deeper look into this painting, you'll notice both figures are dressed in wealthy clothing; this makes sense, as it was found out that Arnolfini was a cloth merchant. The woman is adorned with plain gold jewelry, which for the time was a luxury only worn by the rich. Even the room shows signs of wealth, like the giant brass chandelier hanging from above. Along with that, many oranges are scattered about, another sign of wealth, as they were obtained through trade. Moreover, taking a deeper look into the back of the painting, there is a convex mirror placed on the back wall. In the mirror, you can see the reflection of Arnolfini, his wife, and Eyck. However, he is not actively painting the couple but just standing there. The details alone aren't the only interesting thing about this work; the history behind it is just as great. From the first time the painting was dated in 1434, to 1842 where it was purchased the last time. This painting has been handed down through generations of different families. As well as even surviving a fire that destroyed a lot of other Spanish royal objects. As of 1842, it still resides at the National Gallery in London, 592 years later. source