High School Seniors Win Art And Music Award

By Jeff White

Although Newtown High School seniors Kate Yackel and Kelly Fuller excel at different disciplines, the Connecticut Association of Schools (CAS) has recently recognized them both as outstanding artists.

Every year, the high schools that participate in CAS programs select one student to receive the organization’s music award, and one student to receive the art award. Kate has been honored with the music award, and Kelly has been recognized with the art award.

For as long as she can remember, Kelly has had a knack for expressing herself through artwork. Although she took art lessons as a little girl, she admits that she didn’t get really serious about the discipline until her sophomore year at the high school.

“I love the creativity involved with [art],” she confides. “We have a lot more freedom than other [courses].”

Over the past two years, she has touched on every aspect of art: pottery, three-dimensional drawing, painting, and art history. In addition, Kelly has worked tirelessly designing the sets for many of the high school’s major musicals, like Oliver! and, currently, Music Man.

Kelly describes herself as a “very visual person,” and says that the freedom her art teachers have provided for her over her high school career has allowed her the chance to plot her own artistic course. “I’ve had two good art teachers here, so that has helped me grow as an artist.”

Kate Yackel’s musical prowess is of little surprise given the fact that she comes from a music-oriented family. Her mother is a singer, and directs the choir at Kate’s church. Her father plays the flute, and has done so for many years. Both of these disciplines have converged on Kate, who leads the soprano section in the high school’s Singers, and plays first chair flute in the Wind Ensemble, which she has done for the past two years.

Like Kelly, Kate didn’t really start thinking about making music a life’s work until her sophomore year in high school. “It’s a form of art,” Kate says of her music. “I just love it.”

And her love for both voice and flute has bestowed some substantial recognition on her throughout her high school career. Last year, she was named to the Connecticut Western Regional Band for flute, an honor she also received this year, but declined to play as she was also named to the Connecticut All State section for singing.

Too often, people think of “student stars” at the high school as being athletes. Yet Kelly and Kate have chosen to stand out in areas other than athletics. Where five years ago they might be dubbed “different” or with that all-encompassing word “artistic,” both girls say that the arts are thriving at the high school and are respected. The numbers tell the story: not only are the number of art students growing, but the music program attracts the greatest number of participating students of any high school activity.

Kelly maintains that the computer age is helping art gain a foothold in many schools’ curriculum. “Everything is becoming computerized. I think art is noticed – it’s all around us.”

Kate agrees, but says that Newtown is more of an unusual school for its support of the arts. “There’s a lot of very musical people in Newtown. I think people appreciate [music] more here than in other towns.”

Next year, Kelly is off to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to study art and art history; she has been admitted into the school’s honors program. She admits now that she doesn’t know what kind of art – painting, sculpture, drawing – she wants to concentrate on, but reckons her first couple of years at UMass will point her in the right direction.

Kate will attend Syracuse University in the fall as a music major. Although she would love to focus on her singing, she also thinks she might want to look into teaching. “I think it would be good to pass on [my love for music] through teaching,” she says.

Although receiving the CAS art award sets her apart from the other art students at the high school, Kelly Fuller is quick to point out that art does not strictly define who she is as a person. “I don’t think it is a sole description. I’m lots of other things, an honor student, I’m good at math. [Art] doesn’t define me.”

But does music define CAS music award recipient Kate Yackel? Quite simply, she says, yes it does.