FAC Students Doing Their Thing

FAC PERCUSSION & BRASS STUDENTS

Fine Arts Center visual arts, writing, and voice departments garner yearly recognition by entering Scholastic Visual Arts and Writing competition and the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) competition. They then go on to win copiously in these as well as other competitions, bolstering the profile of the Fine Arts Center in the local community. FAC's percussion and brass students use their studio time to enhance their ongoing technical development and to use it as a springboard for related projects and interests.

Percussion II student (and GCYO Tympanist) Josh Caprell (Southside Christian School) taped an audition video that won him scholarship offers to attend the summer music camps in Brevard, North Carolina ($1500) and Sewanee, Tennessee ($1300). Caprell chose to attend Brevard, where he will study tympani and percussion with the tympanist of the Pittsburgh Symphony. In addition t his work at FAC, Percussion II student Ben Tomlinson is the Drum Captain and jazz band drummer for the Riverside High School band, which recently won Grand Champion status at the Magic Music Disney Competition in Orlando, Florida. (Percussion I student Rebecca Schilizzi is also a Riverside HS band member.) Tomlinson is attending the Oberlin Conservatory Percussion Institute in July. Percussion I student Eli Ackerman (Mauldin HS) snared a gig as the drum set player in the School District's annual Spring Sing.

Percussion III student Justin Pasquale (Riverside HS) has served as as a substitute teacher for the renowned Paul Riddle at the Musicians Center in Spartanburg. (Pasquale, former Riddle student, studies drum set with with Kenny Hogan of the noteworthy rock group Dezeray’s Hammer.) Pasquale, who is also completing his second year as Tympanist of the Greenville County Youth Philharmonic, plans to freelance this summer before departing for Middle Tennessee State University to study music recording & business.

Percussion III student Nathan Wells (home school) has become a successful free lance drummer and percussionist since attending the Fine Arts Center. He also has developed "Altitude Audio," a recording studio that caters to local musicians, and serves as Children’s Music Director at Shannon Forest Presbyterian Church. Well, along with his colleagues from Steve Watson's FAC Jazz Ensemble, was recently received first alternate status in the North Sea Jazz Festival (Rotterdam, Netherlands) and entered the Downbeat Awards Competition for HS Jazz Group of the Year. This summer Wells will tour with the Christian rock band “Half-Past Forever,” and will perform with them at Atlanta Fest in June. Starting in january 2006, Wells will attend the Full Sail (School of Film, Art, Design, Music & Media Production) in Orlando, Florida to study recording arts.

Most FAC percussion and brass students contribute their training to their school bands, rock bands, or church music programs. In February, however, FAC's small but accomplished winds and brass program did compete: for positions in the two All-County festival bands. (The festival was held at the new Woodmont High School.) While Josh Caprell secured the tympani position, percussionists Adam Maalouf, Ben Tomlinson, and Nathan Wells took three of the five available percussion chairs in the wind ensemble. Percussionist Justin Pasquale took a top chair in the Symphonic Band and was joined by trombonist Eric Schneider and trumpet player Alex Forrest in their respective sections. Forrest also represented the Fine Arts Center in the University of South Carolina Band Clinic held in Columbia, held a week later in February, and will attend the Jamey Abersold Summer Jazz workshop in Louisville, Kentucky this summer.