WHAT WE BELIEVE ABOUT BEAUTY
Music and the arts are not extracurricular.
At Saint Charles Borromeo, the arts are not enrichment programs added around the edges of a real curriculum. They are part of the real curriculum. In the grammar school, students draw weekly. Every student receives an hour or more of choral instruction each week. The liturgical choir sings at the school's Friday Masses. The students stage the school's plays.
The conviction beneath this is that Beauty is a teacher in its own right. A child who can sing the Salve Regina, draw what is in front of him, and recite a poem he loves has been given something that no other subject can give.
THREE DISCIPLINES
What the arts curriculum looks like.
Sacred music
MUSICA SACRA
Every student at Saint Charles Borromeo sings. From kindergarten, children learn solfège and the chant of the ordinary. The liturgical choir — open by audition — sings polyphony at the school's high Masses.
- ✦Gregorian chant
- ✦Solfège
- ✦Polyphony (Palestrina, Victoria, Byrd)
- ✦Sight-singing
Drama
DRAMA SCHOLASTICUM
The Logic School meets once a week to produce a full-length play in the spring. Students performed The Odyssey last year to much acclaim.
- ✦Full-length play based on a traditional narrative
- ✦Voice and dialect training
- ✦Improvisation
- ✦Stagecraft and costumes by students
Letters & rhetoric
ARS RHETORICA
Beautiful cursive penmanship, prose and speech are themselves arts. Logic school students compose, recite and defend original work.
- ✦Composition (every grade)
- ✦Recitation & elocution
- ✦Original poetry and prose
- ✦Declamation & disputation
"Beauty will save the world."
— Fyodor Dostoevsky
Come hear the liturgical choir.
The liturgical choir sings at the school's Masses through the year — the easiest way to hear what the music & arts program at Saint Charles Borromeo produces. The schedule is published in the school calendar.