Music & Performing Arts
Welcome to the Simsbury Public Schools Music and Performing Arts Department!
We believe that a quality education in the performing arts is a transformative experience, one that fosters personal growth and a deep appreciation for diverse cultures. Our department is a community built on collaboration, teamwork, and a shared love for the arts. Our vision is to cultivate this passion in every student, preparing them not just for the stage, but for a global society.
On this page, you'll find everything you need to stay connected—from our calendar of performances and rehearsals to information about our many programs and organizations. You can also connect with our wonderful parent support group, the Simsbury Friends for Music and Performing Arts, and explore teacher-specific pages for even more resources.
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Lisa Abel, Director
label@simsburyschools.net
Our Mission
The Simsbury Public Schools Music and Performing Arts department is a community that cultivates a love of the performing arts, fosters personal growth, and prepares students for a global society through collaboration and respect for diverse perspectives.
Simsbury designated one of “Best Communities for Music Education” by NAMM
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LISA ABEL, Director of Music & Performing Arts, was named SPS 2022-23 Teacher of the Year. Additionally, Lisa was one of four semi-finalists for the Connecticut Teacher of the Year.
ELI GOLD, Class of 2025, won the US Navy Band Young Artist Solo Competition and was also a 3-year finalist for the Hartford Symphony's Young Artist competition.
Simsbury High School was nominated for 10 HALO AWARDS in 2025. Noah Summerer won for Best Comic Male Performance in a Musical, and Caroline Fair won for Best Featured Dancer.
REBECCA SALTZMAN, SHS Choir Director, was invited to conduct honors ensembles at CT ACDA and Tompkins County.
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March has been officially designated by the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) for the observance of Music In Our Schools Month (MIOSM®), the time of year when music education becomes the focus of schools across the nation. MIOSM began as a single statewide celebration in 1973, and has grown over the decades to encompass a day, then a week, and then in 1985 to become a month long celebration of school music. The purpose of MIOSM is to raise awareness of the importance of music education for all children – and to remind citizens that school is where all children should have access to music. MIOSM is an opportunity for music teachers to bring their music programs to the attention of the school and the community and to display the benefits school music brings to students of all ages.
The celebration continues to grow each year, reaching more and more students, teachers, musicians, and music supporters. Schools and communities throughout the country and overseas celebrate MIOSM with concerts and other activities based on the year’s theme. Classrooms, concert halls, civic buildings, clubs, parks, libraries, and shopping malls are just some of the arenas in which the public can observe the processes and results of music education.
NAfME, representing more than 75,000 active, retired, and pre-service music teachers and 60,000 honor students and supporters, is the sponsor of MIOSM. In addition to announcing the theme for the year, the organization is responsible for communicating ideas to support state and local MIOSM celebrations, providing awareness items such as T-shirts, posters, and buttons, and coordinating programs such as The Concert for Music In Our Schools Month.
NAfME’s 52 federated state organizations (representing each state, the District of Columbia, and Europe) play an active role in the observance, securing governors’ proclamations, enlisting the support of chief state school officers, and establishing organizational structures to help reach individual music educators. MIOSM chairpersons with each state organization provide the major thrust for the MIOSM celebrations, with the goal of involving students, administrators, parents, civic groups, and community members. Other national arts and education organizations also lend their endorsements and support to the programs through publications and events.
See NAfME.org's Music in Our Schools Month website for more information and resources.
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Schools & Professional Organizations
NAMM Foundation - Music research briefs
National Association for Music Education
The Hartt School, University of Hartford, Undergraduate Admissions
Advocacy
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Simsbury Friends for Music & Performing Arts website
The Simsbury Public Schools is not responsible for the content of any referenced or linked off-site page. By providing links to other websites, the Simsbury Public Schools does not guarantee, approve or endorse the information or products available at these sites. The district takes reasonable care in linking websites but has no direct control over the content of the linked sites. You should direct any concerns regarding an external link to webmaster@simsburyschools.net.
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Geoffrey Saunders, Class of 2005, performed during the 59th GRAMMY Awards Premiere Ceremony on February 12, 2017, in Los Angeles. Geoff, a two-time Grammy-nominated bassist, performed with the O'Connor Band, with Mark O'Connor, performing "Ruby, Are You Mad At Your Man?" Check out this clip from the Grammys! Photo: Mark O'Connor Band (Geoff appears at top right).
Will Conard-Malley is in his senior year of college, in fact, he spent his winter term on the other side of the world! Each year the Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC) selects one graduate and one undergraduate paper for presentation at the annual SETC Convention. We are proud to announce that Will's undergraduate paper was selected for this honor. See article on SETC website.
(Feb 2023) The New York Youth Symphony made history as the first youth orchestra to ever win a Grammy, in the category of "Best Orchestral Performance." Ben Poirot, class of 2017, was one of the 110 symphony musicians.
"The album features the works of Valerie Coleman, NYYS alumna Jessie Montgomery, and Florence Price. Acclaimed pianist Michelle Cann performs on the Price Piano Concerto. In the fall of 2020, when live performances were shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York Youth Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Michael Repper decided that instead of their usual concert at Carnegie Hall, they would record their very first studio album. This presented several challenges. The heightened safety protocol meant that the full 110 musician orchestra could not be in the same space together; playing separated and socially distanced meant sometimes recording to a click track, while wearing headphones, a skill most of the musicians had to learn quickly. The Grammy award-winning producer Judith Sherman and recording engineer Isaiah Abolin then layered the tracks on top of each other. It was a true feat and the results are incredible!" Read more about this accomplishment in the following articles:
Emily Bautista heads to Broadway! Class of 2015 graduate Emily Bautista is an ensemble cast member in the Broadway Revival of Miss Saigon. Bautista will be the understudy for Eva Noblezada, who will play the lead role of a “young bar girl named Kim, orphaned by war, who falls in love with Chris, an American GI—but their lives are torn apart by the fall of Saigon.”
In her senior year, Emily Steele, was selected to attend the Metropolitan Opera’s 2019 High School Opera Singers Intensive Program in New York City. Emily was selected as one of only ten talented singers from across the United States and Canada to participate in this prestigious program.
Rachel Sennott, class of 2014, has starred in HBO's High Maintenance and played Jackie Raines on Call Your Mother. She has also developed a Comedy Central series with Ayo Edebiri, and their shows Ayo and Rachel Are Single and Taking the Stage began airing on the network in 2020. She also appears with Edebiri and other comedians on the web comedy-documentary series Speak Up, seeking to amplify female voices about working in comedy. In film, she has starred in the 2020 feature films Tahara as Hannah Rosen, and Shiva Baby as Danielle. In 2022, she played Alice in Bodies Bodies Bodies, a slasher film that also contained comedy and social satire.
SHS and UConn alumnus Dan Campolieta recently accepted a position to play piano for the US Army Band in Washington, DC.
Class of 2010 Ethan Kyzivat performs George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" at Yale in February 2015. Watch the video.
Class of 2002 grad, Jen Silverman has written a play "The Moors" which is getting an off-Broadway production at the Duke on 42nd Street Theater. Jen is a member of New Dramatists, a Core Writer at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, and has developed work with the O’Neill, Williamstown, New York Theatre Workshop, Playpenn, and the Royal Court in London among other places. She’s a two-time MacDowell fellow, recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, the Helen Merrill Fund Award for emerging playwrights, and the Yale Drama Series Award for STILL. She is the 2016-2017 Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellow at the Lark. She currently has a two-book deal with Random House for a collection of stories and a novel.
The movie re Parts premiered on January 16, 2015, with its screenplay written by Elissa Matsueda, a 1994 graduate of SHS. The film is about a high school robotics team and stars George Lopez and Jamie Lee Curtis. Elissa is the daughter-in-law of SHS Cafeteria Manager Caterina Carbone. Caterina's son, Anthony Carbone, also an SHS graduate, co-produces Wake Up Call, a series that airs Friday nights on TNT. Anthony also has received an Emmy for his work on Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. The couple resides in California. Check out the clip on fandango.com!
An article about the Class of 2013's Dan Campolieta appeared in The Hartford Courant on January 3, 2015 and is available online. The article, written by Kristin Stoller, includes a positive quote about Simsbury Public Schools by Simsbury's director of administrative services Tom Cooke, who is also a member of the Hartford-based classical choral group Voce, which sang Dan's first published piece, "Will There Really Be a Morning?" Read the article now!
John Mundy, Class of 2010, is playing trombone in the band "West End Blend," and they're doing really well; in fact, the band was just nominated for two awards. Read the article on the NBC Connecticut website.
Class of 2008 graduate Richard Saunders and his vocal group have a video on You Tube. See their cover of Sam Smith song
Sarah Primmer, Class of 2005, will be performing in the national tour of "Nice Work If You Can Get It," which will be at The Bushnell February 4-8.
Sam Petitti, Class of 2004, is a member of the band Glass Elephant, which produced a music video. Check out the video.
Class of 2000 Melissa Mylchreest published her first book of poetry, entitled Waking the Bones, in September 2014. Melissa Mylchreest was born in Simsbury but moved to Montana in 2006. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing (poetry and nonfiction) from the University of Montana, as well as an MS in Environmental Studies. In addition to the Brunsman prize, she has received the 2012 Merriam-Frontier Award for writing, a 2008 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize for Poetry, the Obsidian Prize for Poetry in both 2011 and 2012 from High Desert Journal, and a residency at the Hall Farm Arts Center. She lives in Missoula.
Greg Ludovici, Class of 2000, is a founder of the Sea Tree Improv Company in Hartford. (Students from SHS have participated in the company's student classes and performances.) They recently performed at First Night in Hartford.
SHS alum Brad Alexander wrote a musical that received a Drama Desk award in 2011 and is now premiering in the UK and is possibly headed for Broadway! His brother Jed is also an actor who can be seen on various shows on TV. Visit Brad's music website.
Ed Goldschneider, Class of 1989, conducted the Radio City Music Hall orchestra for their Christmas Spectacular shows in 2014. He is currently music director for the off-Broadway show NEWsical. Broadway World.com article.
Class of 1985 Michael Stamstag founded and directs The Scruffy City Film and Music Festival in Knoxville, TN. The purpose of the festival is to promote independent films and musicians.