Excitement, anticipation and a little bit of music mingled in the air Tuesday as the New Mexico School for the Arts celebrated its inaugural day of classes.    Parents and other community members joined NMSA staff and students for an assembly to mark the first day at the new statewide, public arts school.    A total of 141 students in the ninth through 11th grades have come to the school’s downtown Santa Fe campus — located at the former St. Francis Cathedral School building — to receive training in their choice of dance, music, theater or visual arts, in addition to the standard coursework needed to obtain a New Mexico diploma.    Those students were welcomed into Tuesday’s assembly with a standing ovation and they left following a faculty performance of a song written for the occasion.

A series of speakers — including Academy Award winner and New Mexico resident Shirley MacLaine — took the stage during the event to honor the students as they begin their new journey.    “This is the first step in the recognition of your talent and your     commitment to your artistic disciplines. I congratulate you on your choices and on your promising future. You are our Olympians,” said New Mexico Cultural Affairs Secretary Stuart Ashman. “Yes, your efforts to date have paid off, but now the work really begins.”    Approximately 245 students auditioned last February to attend NMSA and more than 90 percent who were offered spots accepted them. Though 68 percent of the students hail from Santa Fe, the student population represents all three congressional districts. Approximately 20 students are taking advantage of a residential program that allows them to live on the New Mexico School for the Deaf campus.    MacLaine told the crowd Tuesday that she was reminded of her own experience, leaving her Virginia home for New York at age 16.    “I was trepidatious and a little frightened, but I found myself relying on the artist inside of me,” she said.    MacLaine — who abandoned the stage   in favor of talking to the students upclose — told the teens “never forget who you are” because that self-recognition serves artists well.    “Remember to go inside, and you will be the one who is producing and creating all of the reality around you. That’s what art is,” she said.

Several of Tuesday’s speakers expressed awe that the school had finally become a reality. New Mexico first lady Barbara Richardson said she sometimes doubted this day would come.    “The opening of this school is the culmination of more than six years of hard work and roller-coaster rides for many here today,” she said.    It was a sentiment shared by Catherine Oppenheimer, chair of the school’s governing board.    “Here we had this little ember of idea that we carried for so many years in our hearts and minds and it’s become threedimensional,” she said.    Oppenheimer pointed out that fundraising would always be a part of keeping the school running but said she   didn’t think that would be a problem.    As a public school, NMSA gets state funding that covers the cost of a basic academic education, but Oppenheimer noted that private donations pay for the arts element, including the instruction and materials.    The state gave NMSA $528,000 in onetime startup money since the school didn’t qualify for federal charter school funding because auditions are required for acceptance.

Prior to inviting faculty members onstage to sing “Celebrate the Arts” — a song penned by Roy M. Rogosin, the school’s director of choirs — Head of School Jim Ledyard thanked the students for making the choice to attend NMSA.    “We know since choice translates into motivation, which is passion, that the likelihood of success here is very, very high indeed — your success and the school’s success — so we set out on this adventure brimming with confidence and enthusiasm,” he said.

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Santa Fe New Mexican; by Robert Nott; 8-16-10

About 140 teens showed up in a warm, crowded gym Monday to sign up for classes at the new, state-funded New Mexico School for the Arts in downtown Santa Fe.

The school, in the making since 2005, officially starts today with a morning assembly featuring actress Shirley MacLaine and Mayor David Coss as guest speakers, followed by a half-day of classes. Students this year are in grades nine through 11; seniors will be added next year.

Housed in the former St. Francis Cathedral School on the corner of East Alameda Street and Paseo de Peralta, the school is drawing students from around New Mexico, although 68 percent of the initial enrollment comes from the Santa Fe area.

“It’s specifically geared toward anyone who wants to turn art into a career, and that’s what I want to do,” explained 15-year-old Chris Iannucci as she stood near the front of the line to register for theater classes Monday.

Students will study traditional subjects such as math, English and history while focusing on one of four arts-related curriculums: theater, dance, music or visual arts.

The ultimate goal is to prepare students for college and an arts career.

“I’m excited, enthused and energized,” Jim Ledyard, head of school, said as students swirled around him, delivering paperwork to an office or a registration table. “I expect that, for many of these students, this will be the first time they can concentrate in-depth on their art form.”

Ledyard previously worked 11 years as head of the independent Ravenscroft School in Raleigh, N.C. He and his arts chair directors — Joey Chavez (theater) Adam McKinney (dance), Ben Klemme (music) and Cristina González (visual arts) — joined other teachers and staff — about 25 in all — in welcoming and signing in students Monday morning.

Though a few students and parents complained of the heat in the cramped gym, the mood was otherwise upbeat, with teens eagerly greeting familiar faces and parents — more moms than dads, it seemed — beaming with pride.

“I’m very pleased,” Nina Simmons said of her daughter, Taos resident Maggie Carson. “It’s a privilege for her to be going here.”

Carson — whose brightly colored hair and clothes suggested a moving work of art, which is fitting given she’s studying visual arts at the school — said, “It’s going to be amazing to be totally immersed in art.”

Another mom, Polly Montoya of Santa Fe, said the school is bound to be a good fit for her 16-year-old son, David James Dean III (she’s a big fan of the late actor James Dean).

“He was a real rambunctious kid,” she said of her son as he filled out paperwork. “Down in Albuquerque, I got him a $20 guitar. I put it in his hands and he taught himself how to play. This is his passion; this school can jump-start his career. I think he is destined to do great things.”

Chance Willey (his parents got married in Las Vegas, Nev., it was explained), 15, is taking the theater program at New Mexico School for the Arts. He said he’d been acting since he was 5 years old, and this school “seemed like the logical thing to do now.”

Roy Rogosin, director of the school’s choir, was manning the literature table in the gym, filling in for an English teacher who had stepped away.

“This is very exciting stuff,” he said as students collected textbooks. “I wish I were on the other side of this table. This is the sort of place that young art students dream of — and if they don’t dream of it, they should!”

The institute is the first residential charter school in the state, and tuition is free, though some students may pay boarding costs on a sliding scale. Unlike most such schools, admission is not by lottery, but by audition. About 250 students auditioned last March for the school.

Roughly 20 students will board at Cartwright Hall on the New Mexico School for the Deaf campus while another 20 or so will commute daily from nearby communities, including Española, Las Vegas, N.M., and Albuquerque.

The school’s annual budget is about $2 million, which is supported by legislative startup funds of $525,000 as well as private and corporate donations. Catherine Oppenheimer, one of the founding committee members of the school and the founding artistic director of the National Dance Institute of New Mexico, said the board will be very busy raising funds to grow it into a model school for the state and country.

“I think there’s a tremendous amount of energy and hope and excitement behind the school now,” she said. “This state has such a unique cultural heritage and arts history — this makes so much sense. Why shouldn’t we be nurturing, developing and growing our own artists, and why should access to that kind of education be given only to students who can afford it privately? New Mexico can do this.”

The school has a four-year lease at the downtown site, with an option to extend an additional year, but both Ledyard and Oppenheimer said it will have to find or build its own campus by that time to fulfill all of its potential.

Ledyard said the school will probably add another 75 students next year, moving toward its eventual cap of 300 pupils.

According to Adelma Hnasko, director of admissions for the school, the admission process for the 2011/2012 school year will begin in September. Details can be found on the school’s website, www.nmschoolforthearts.org.

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Robert Nott / The New Mexican

There was a time when Joey Chavez thought he might be an architect. And another long period of time where he pursued acting. And once — long ago — he wrote on a college admissions document that he’d like to be a drama teacher at a university.

All those dreams came in handy as he ran Santa Fe High School’s drama department for 15 years. He started in 1995, and he’ll finish this spring. In August, he’ll move over to the new charter school, New Mexico School for the Arts, to become the theater department chairman.

In the interim, he’s working feverishly to get Urinetown into shape. The cult musical satire by Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis — set in a future society so beset by drought that people have to pay for the right to pee — marks Chavez’s last spring musical at the school. It opens at 8 p.m. tonight and runs two more weekends at Santa Fe High.

Speaking in between musical numbers during a recent rehearsal, Chavez said he estimates he’s directed 150 shows over the past 10 years. The first was David Ives’ collection of short plays called All in the Timing. The last show will be in late May, when Chavez mounts Stress and Coffee, the school’s annual “let’s put on a show in 24 hours!” theater fest. He’ll be leaving the campus after graduation on June 4. The district is currently looking for a replacement for Chavez.

“It was the toughest choice I’ve made since the choice to leave New York in the summer of 1995,” Chavez said of his decision to accept the New Mexico School for the Arts job back in December. “The mission of the school — in my mind — is to build a world-class program focusing on the arts. I want to be part of that.”

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This summer, a group of distinguished professionals in the fields of dance, visual arts, music and theater will travel to New Mexico to share their expertise with the state’s young artists.

The series of master classes and intensive workshops are presented by the newly-established charter high school, The New Mexico School for the Arts.

Spencer Beckwith, host of KUNM’s Performance New Mexico, sat down with the school’s summer programs producer.

Listen below or click here to go to KUNM’s website.

[audio:http://www.kunm.org/audiohurl.php?s0=061609SCHOOLARTS.mp3]

Craig Smith | The New Mexican

Brilliant Broadway hoofer Ann Reinking has won major awards for her acting, directing and choreography. Actor and comedian Richard Kind is equally at home performing onstage, in films and on television.

Susan York combines steel, porcelain and graphite in complex and alluring art installations sought by museums, galleries and collectors. And pianist Joel Fan is always flying all over the place to perform concertos, solo recitals and chamber music.

This distinguished quartet will share their skills with New Mexico middle- and high-school students this weekend in master classes at the National Dance Institute of New Mexico’s Dance Barns here in Santa Fe. The three-hour sessions, from 1 to 4 p.m., are presented by the New Mexico School for the Arts. While applications are necessary for admission, the fee is only $20.

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