Arts

Concordia encourages students to create, perform, respond, and connect through music. This is accomplished at the elementary level through the Orff-Schulwerk approach. With this approach, students experience and learn music through a sequence that is appropriate for their age and development. Here is an example of a typical music lesson.

First, students listen to a song or chant and discover the story within the words. This might be about a train, delicious food, or an animal. Usually, there is a game or movement that matches the words. Sometimes there are different instruments to play with the song.

After exploring the song in an interactive way, students are ready to label a music skill or concept. Writing the rhythm, reading the melody, or labeling the patterns within the music are all important music skills that are practiced during the activity. Taking time to label this skill after the game allows students to label it easily because they have explored and experienced it. It is similar to learning to talk first, and then learning to read.

Elementary students attend music every three days. All students perform in school-wide performances, including a Christmas Concert and Spring Showcase.

Music is an integral and valued part of our community and academic program at Concordia. All middle school students experience at least one music class each year, to help contribute to their well-rounded education. High school students will take part in at least two years of art classes, although most students choose to take more.

In Concordia Music, students develop and hone their skills in individual and ensemble performance techniques, music literacy, history, and creativity, through singing, playing instruments, and a variety of other activities. We have a strong sense of community within our vocal and instrumental ensembles. The students encourage each other and work as a team to create beautiful music.

The music program for all middle school and high school classes follows standards based on the National Association for Music Education in America (NAfME), with emphasis on the 4 strands of Creating, Performing, Connecting, and Responding.

Our music students have many performance opportunities in and outside of school. During the 2018-2019 school year, Concordia joined the Association of Music in International Schools (AMIS). Our musicians traveled to Austria, China, and India to participate in these prestigious festivals. Within our school and the greater community, we have frequent formal and informal performances, as music is a gift to be shared with others!

Visual Art seeks to shift the role of the artist from teacher to student. The goal of making artists starts with teaching students to do the work that artist do, with the belief they have something valuable to say and express.

The Visual Art program connects its vision to the 2014 National Core Visual Arts Standards developed in the USA. The standards are set up to build up students to make meaningful choices in their artwork and help them grow as artists. Formative and summative assessments further our learning by using the standards

The Four Standards include the Artistic Process:

• Creating: conceiving and developing new artistic ideas and work
• Presenting: interpreting and sharing artistic work
• Responding: understanding and evaluating how Art conveys meaning
• Connecting: relating artistic ideas and work with personal meaning and external context

These standards develop creativity, collaboration, confidence, cultural awareness, empathy, and critical thinking, making art education instrumental for 21st-century learning.

The drama program at Concordia International School Hanoi began in the school’s second year of operation. From our very beginning, the fine arts were an important component of our curricular and co-curricular offerings.

Concordia offers opportunities for both middle school and high school performers to develop their craft. With productions in the fall for Middle School and in the spring for High School, our students enjoy bringing a script to the stage. We choose productions that both challenge and inspire our students. This has included “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” “Shrek: The Musical,” “The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever,” and more. Typically, our productions vary with one-third to one-half of our entire student body participating either on-stage or backstage. The production of “Shrek: The Musical” had over 40 students actively engaged in the production process.

Curricularly, we offer introductory courses to drama and musical theatre production and performance. The drama program continues to grow and develop our students as creators of art both on stage and behind the curtain.