Performing Arts

MCDS believes in nurturing students’ creative expression through the performing arts.  Students perform at assemblies, in concerts, and in plays throughout the school year.

In Lower School, the music program is inspired by the educational ideas of Carl Orff, an Austrian composer who believed that children should be guided to work creatively with the elements of music and movement.  In this approach, songs, chants, rhymes, stories, games and dances from many cultures and times become doorways through which children enter the conceptual world of form, pitch, phrase, tempo, rhythm, dynamics, melody, harmony, tone color, orchestration and movement quality.

The music program in Upper School, emphasizes the development of rhythmic, melodic, vocal, instrumental, notation, song-writing and listening skills and provides students with multiple opportunities for ensemble work.  In Drama, Upper School students build self-confidence, imagination, self-presentation, and the ability to work in ensemble with others. They learn basic theater-related vocabulary and explore different genres of theater and some theater history. Students have the opportunity to participate in various plays and elective offerings throughout the year.