This class will focus on singers ranging from the late 1880s through present day, and exactly what makes them great. Through listening to performances and interviews, students will glean insights into which singers changed the game and were breakthrough artists for their time, ultimately inspiring the next generation of singers. There will be discussion of vocal techniques used by various singers throughout the decades, and how these have inspired singing today. 

Do you love to knit or crochet? Have you ever seen someone knitting and wanted to try it? Are you looking for a way to decrease stress, connect with other creators, and build up your community? Whether you have been working with yarn for years or you have never touched a knitting needle before, there is a place for you in this class. Students will improve their individual knitting skills, while exploring the many ways that knitting together can benefit us and those around us.

Garage Band Live will take students through the discovery of musical performance and creation in both live and digital formats. Through the live portion of the course, students will be able to explore different instruments as they create original songs each week. During the digital portion of the course, students will learn the basic software tools to be able to create their own digital works. Each portion of the course will be collaborative.

Do you have a photographic vision? Would you like to enhance your way of seeing through the lens? We will work with Canon digital cameras, and learn how to use all of those controls and options to create photographic artwork. Class time will be used for shooting, editing with Lightroom and Photoshop, and preparing images for printing and sharing electronically. We will also view and discuss the work of contemporary photographers, and share our own work with classmates. No previous camera or editing experience required.

Work with a selected group of five students maximum to build an artistic plant-growth structure. Students will learn building, design, and botanical skills but need to first qualify with a base-line of required skills. The project will work in phases: design, skills-learning, structure-building, materials-collection, site preparation, building, installation, and planting. Due to this project being slightly outside of the norms of the ART 360 structure, the group will often meet at additional times to fulfill the project, not during the weekly class times, and will run for the entire year.

This class will introduce members to the seven domains of wellness, and help them identify meaningful ways to support their wellbeing through self-care practices. We will also explore how self-care ties into our artistic work and capacity. The class will include goal-setting and check-ins to offer structure as students explore various self-care activities and begin designing their own unique practice.

Jingju—also called Peking/Beijing opera, pingju, or guoju (the national opera)—is a sophisticated traditional theatrical form widely-disseminated in domestic and overseas Chinese communities. Join me this fall to learn the basic concepts of Peking opera's performance and music and—more specifically—how to recite and play Peking opera's percussion music through luogujing (a mnemonic system that uses verbal syllables to represent percussion sounds). Students from all majors are welcome, including those without musical backgrounds.

"You're backpacking through a national park and you see three goats in a tree . . . GO!"

No scripts in this class. All you have are your wits. That's the challenge of the improvisor. But what is to be learned by making up theater on the spot? The benefits are incredibly varied: how to create a scene that will hold an audience's attention; how to collaborate with artists of different backgrounds and interests; how does one push the envelope without causing offense? All of this creation is done live and in the moment. There is no time to mull over an idea. You hurl it out there and see if it sticks. If it doesn't, you learn how to make the fact that it didn't stick funny. It's like painting. There are no mistakes—you just turn a scene into something new. That is the greatest benefit of all! An improviser learns to see every accident or 'mistake' as an opportunity for something new and better. You will learn to deftly spin an 'error' into something wonderful.

Singer? Instrumentalist? Rapper? Front man? Lover of music? Do you have a lot of energy and you’d like to express it in music?

In this course, each week we will learn a new song, and study pieces about the artist and the community that authors these styles of music. African-American culture and musical practices are at the core of these foundational American music styles. In this class, you may opt to sing/rap or play an instrument, and you may opt to dance while performing.

What do Coco Chanel, Pablo Picasso, and Edgar Degas all have in common? During their careers, they were all at some point involved with ballet. Just like these three great visual artists, this class will explore the intersection of the visual art world with ballet. From a historical perspective, we will look at the different ways ballet and visual art have influenced one another. Students will identify opportunities to collaborate with other departments outside  their major, as well as how ballet and visual art can be used to influence, inspire, or inform their future work.

Utilizing film and video, students will become acquainted with pivotal works made during the major eras of ballet. Students may sample ballet techniques as a reference for further engagement in figure drawing, collage, costume and set design.

This course will look at music beginning with the time before it was recorded until now, and how cultures shift in the way they consume, share, enjoy, analyze, and create music. It will also explore what makes sound music.

Do you love to sing? Are you interested in making beautiful vocal music with fellow Walnuts? Then the Walnut Hill Chorus is for you! Together we will learn to sing music in a variety of languages and genres, including classical music, spirituals, and folk songs. Prior singing experience and familiarity with music notation is a plus, and is not required.

Students will explore campus and choose a place or an item that is otherwise unattractive, and develop a graffiti design to improve upon it. Using photography and the basics of Photoshop, students will create three designs. Keeping the designs geometric in nature will allow for students who aren't technically skilled at painting to produce art that is both interesting and beautiful! Students may then pitch these designs for approval to bring them to life on campus.

Lighting the Scene gives students a chance to work with multiple kinds of lighting fixtures and instruments. This course provides each artist the experience with programming a light board console to create lighting cues for any kind of event. We will explore some foundational techniques for expressing your artistry through lighting. Imagine the awesome things you can incorporate into your arts projects with just a bit more knowledge!  

Have you ever wanted to produce a play, but just the audio portion? In this course, students will learn how to read and interpret a script for acting, how to imagine and create a soundscape for it, and possibly record a full radio play to share with the full Walnut Hill community. In this course, we will use an edited version of a previously-published radio drama for most of our work, and some students may even write one themselves. No experience—acting or technical—is necessary. You are only required to bring an open mind and a desire to play.

When the global pandemic and regional lockdowns began, individuals across the world turned to fiber arts as a way of restoring mental health, offering service, and finding community. The act of creating fabric to bring a community together or to spread joy helped neighborhoods across the world. In this course, students will learn about the history of fiber arts by exploring multimedia and receiving hands-on training in fabric arts. Students will then create their own installations to spread joy to both the Walnut Hill and Natick communities. No prior experience is required for this Fiber Arts class.

A few choice lines of dialogue, a sound effect, some of the right music in the background, and audio dramas can create a whole world in your head. Amazing! In each week of Sudden Scenes, students will write, record, and mix a short audio drama in response to a weird creative challenge. Can you craft a 30-second story between a person and their toaster? Can you write a three act play where each act has only 10 words? If these challenges sound interesting, and if you want to play with sound, drama, and music all mashed together, then Sudden Scenes might be for you.

Is creation of art an automatic good? What kind of relationship do I want to have to my craft? What, if any, is my duty as an artist?

As artists, we hold the power to reckon with the past, reflect the present, and mold individual and collective futures. This invites the question: What kind of artist do I want to be? This course invites students to engage with the ethics of their craft through an interactive, dynamic process of reframing, reflection, and analyzing from the vantage point of others. Through readings, discussion, and art-making, students will understand basic moral philosophy, consider how ethical questions are uniquely situated in the arts, and actively engage with their stance on contemporary, morally-charged issues in the arts. This class will most benefit students who have a desire to be leaders in their creative communities.

Always dreamt of taking up ballet? Join Jen in this super fun class featuring a mix of conditioning, barre, and center moves. You will feel stronger, taller, more graceful, and inspired by the beautiful live music played by Ms. Afrika Lambe! Special bonus: ballet terminology is in French!

As Artists at Walnut Hill, we spend a lot of time and energy interpreting works by other people: choreographers, painters, composers, playwrights, and more. The Free Improvisation Ensemble turns this idea upside down!

FIE is a space where music is made up on-the-spot, without any predetermined plan. You will have the opportunity to explore deep listening, to try out ideas, and to be challenged to trust your instincts and those of your friends. We will make music at every meeting and each piece we improvise will only exist in the moment we make it.

Mr. Z has beautified our campus! Examples of his work can be seen in our outdoor labyrinth and the Zen fountain in the ATC created by last year's ART360 class! You will create your own design using modeling techniques, both analog and digital, with the aid of drafting tools and 3D modeling software. You will learn to bolster spatial cognition, ideation, organization of workflow, proof of concept, and other important elements of design.

In this exciting vocal music course, you will learn the ins and outs of a Capella singing, pop style! Over the last 20 years, a Capella singing groups have made a major contribution to the arts community. Singing dissonant, close harmonies, and learning to use your voice and breath support techniques to blend and create beautiful and exciting a Capella music.

The most successful and well-known artists of today have a broad and vivid online presence. As the pacesetters of 21st century artists, it’s important that you each have a great sense of how to market and sell yourself. In this course, students can expect to finish the 10 weeks with a functioning artist page—completely designed and built by yourself!

Jazz Funk (West Coast), also known as Street Jazz (East Coast), covers hit dance styles and moves from hardcore hits like the musical Hamilton, to the fierce vibes of Lady Gaga and Beyonce, to the hype heel-ography of Kinky Boots. Jazz Funk [Street Jazz] incorporates little bits and pieces of other dance genres and wraps it into a funky style that is both fun and expressive! Dancers will be able to learn dance technique terminology and apply it to warm-ups and choreography. Dancers learn to problem solve through music—hitting isolations with sheer intensity, moving through dynamics both hard and soft, and sprinkling a little “sassy in your step.” Jazz Funk [Street Jazz] tells a story with the body. Get ready for the “Boom Kack Ka Ka Bam Whop!”

Have you ever wondered how people have the courage to stand in front of hundreds of others and say all those lines they memorized? Have you ever imagined how learning to act might impact your ability to interpret a painting, or imagine a dance move? Maybe you want to deepen your connection to the words you sing or write? Whatever you can imagine is possible in the world of acting. In this class, you will explore real life scenarios in very much imagined situations. There is no end to where this acting road may take you.