Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Monday, July 14, 2008

 Less than an hour before show time, music teacher Camille Ely scurried through the hallways of Booker T. Washington Academy’s Intermediate Center – rounding up children for the school’s third annual spring showcase. 

  The kids had stayed after school for a pizza party. Now it was time for last-minute practice.

  One classroom just off the stage was a tangle of costumes, props and tiny actors. Students pulled on oversized animal heads and toted around cardboard fire and trees as they ran through “The Old Woman and Her Pig” song one last time.

  With a half-hour to go, relatives and friends trickled into the gym, grasping printed programs and seeking good seats on the bleachers. One little boy rolled his toy truck on the basketball court; another family munched on McDonald’s fries.

  At one end of the gym, youngsters tuned cellos and violins as a line of keyboards stood by, awaiting their moment. Opposite them, some students pulled brass instruments out of padded black cases while others warmed up on the bongos and African drums. In between, a family of xylophones – Papa, Mama and Baby Bear size – sat in rows where later, children would stand, kneel and sit to play tunes.

  Meanwhile, the music director lined up the chorus and counted noses as helpers offstage checked the microphones one last time.

  Shortly after 5:30 p.m., the program began with a welcome from interim principal Jock Gum.

  Booker T. Washington Academy has made an effort to expose all its students to the arts, he said backstage beforehand, noting that nearly half the school’s 230 children participated in the spring production.

  One highlight was the percussion ensemble D.R.U.M. – Discipline, Respect and Unity through Music – which composed a set especially for this performance. Other notables included the African-American spiritual “I Want Two Wings,” the band’s rendition of “Hot Cross Buns” and an Aesop fable, “The North Wind & the Sun.” The Art Club, which has an exhibit up in the library through May 16, also shared favorite works during the showcase.

  Many hands were at work behind the scenes: band director Maggie McHugh, Drama Club instructor Kristin Ogata, orchestra director Ned Farrar, piano ensemble director Cathy Rowland, accompanist Joe Hodges, Art Club instructor Michelle Yazell, and music teacher Camille Ely, who directs the chorus, D.R.U.M. and Orff Ensemble.

  “They try to showcase a little bit of all the disciplines and allow the kids to show off their part of the arts,” Gum said.