Saturday, June 5, 2010

Today we attended SCPA's Open House

This morning John ran in the Redlegs 5K and I worked in the garden. We had talked about walking downtown to SCPA (School for Creative and Performing Arts) open house but did not have enough time and almost skipped it entirely. I'm so glad we did not. What a fascinating building and interesting school. SCPA is a magnet arts school and part of the CPS (Cincinnati Public Schools). This aerial shot is from Wikipedia's page on the school. Wikipedia describes SCPA as "one of the oldest and most prestigious art schools in the US". According to this site there are about 350 art schools in the country but this is the first one to "incorporate full range of art studies with complete college-preparatory academic program for elementary through High School." The building is 5 stories and takes up an entire block of Central Parkway. The L shape building has mostly academic classrooms in one wing and arts in the other. The circle at the point of the L are where the theatres are located. This building has 3 theatres. The smallest one, seats 120, is in the basement is called the "Black Box". The biggest theatre seats 750 and has a hydraulic lift for the orchestra pit. The next biggest theatre seats 350 and has state of the art acoustics. Interestingly the theatres seat more than their gym. A little history about this school. Pictured below is building SCPA is moving from which is on Sycamore Street. The school almost closed in 1996 after an unsolved arson and other personnel scandals. Erich Kunzel, Cincinnati Pops Maestro, is credited with working with the community to build and finance this school in it's new location. Over $31 million was raised in private contributions and the building is named for the late Erich Kunzel who died of cancer in September 2009. Kunzel wanted to bring SCPA to Over-the-Rhine to help re-vitalize the city. The school originated in 1973 in this building on St Gregory Street in Mt Adams. This is the old Mt Adams Public School which now is residential condos.
SCPA's largest theater (I copied from their site.)
The Lunchroom.
View from the 2nd floor looking down to lobby entrance.
These student areas are in the corner of the L on each floor. The gymnasium.
Pictures from the art rooms.
One of the upper class man dance studios.
Photo of student dancers.
Since I finally asked if I could take pictures half way through the tour I wanted to go back to the Kindergarten rooms to get a few pictures before we left.
The staff was getting ready to lock up but a very nice man let us look around a few minutes.
The playground for the Kindergartners and 1st graders. That is Carew Tower in the background. Turns out the guy that let us take another peek was the principal, Mr Flowers. Really nice guy who told us they have 1350 students. In order to get your pre-schooler enrolled you need to apply a year in advance and there is an interview process. I read online that of the 1700 who apply approximately 60% will be asked to audition and about 250-275 ultimately accepted. The school is free to CPS students but open to students outside the city. If you live outside the city tuition in 2007 was $6400 in state and $9654 out of state. Approximately 10% of the students are tuition paid and some are international.
Below is a picture of the kindergarten room. These rooms have their own access to the playground and bathrooms in the classrooms. You can also see the camera in the middle of the room (in all classrooms) which is monitored in school main office.
The lowered sink to accommodate little kids.
This is a picture of the Gift Shop which apparently is run by Parent Volunteers who also have a dedicated meeting space adjacent to the store. It seemed like there was a lot of parental and we had at least one grandparent tour gude who was so proud of her family's connection with SCPA.
The Lobby.
Just outside the front doors looking down Central Parkway at Kroger Corporate Headquarters.
The temporary sign for the building name.
SCPA is also a significant partner for the World Choir Games which are going to be held in Cincinnati in July 2012. The event is the largest choir competition in the world and was formerly known as the Choir Olympics. It is held every 2 years for 2 weeks. Over 5,000 choirs from 90 countries compete in 300 events. Over 1/2 of the 200,000 + participants are children and young people under 25. This will be the first time the World Choir Games is held in the United States. The next host is Shaoxing, China July 15 - 26, 2010.

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