Fine Arts Overview
State of the “Arts” at Cumberland Academy
Tim Schodowski, Fine Arts Director
Distinctively one of the premier fine arts high school campuses in the east Texas area, Cumberland Academy proudly announces the completion of its new Performing Arts Center! Given a tour of the new facility you will find a state of the art 750-seat auditorium, a spacious band hall, orchestra and choir classrooms, and a spacious dance studio along with a black box theatre and stagecraft area. Set to be fully functioning this fall, students will follow the tradition of selecting their electives from a full slate of performing and visual art options including digital and traditional art, band, choir, dance, orchestra and theatre as part of the daily academic schedule. With our distinguished fine arts faculty, both performance and competition events continue to be plentiful throughout the school year yielding outstanding results.
Our music teachers all have a track record of achieving UIL Sweepstakes wins and they take pride in collaborating together for the purpose of maintaining and improving student achievement and involvement. Student participation has almost tripled in the last few years and we have had students selected to participate at both the state and region levels in band, orchestra, and choir. Scoring numerous division I’s at UIL Solo & Ensemble for all three music disciplines at both the region and state levels has afforded notoriety for Cumberland Academy as well as having several of our students selected as TMEA Music Scholars over the past few years. Not to be outdone, our dance department has brought home the competition trophies and has performed many wonderful programs for the school as well as Mistletoe & Magic and the Christmas Parade. Exploding on the scene is our phenomenal theatre program with plans to produce a musical, 2 shows, and participation in One Act Competitions this year. Furthermore, our visual art students under the direction of our esteemed art teachers have won numerous awards at V.A.S.E competitions; this past year boasting of 33 medalists and several advancing to state competition.
Only being in existence for five years our high school performing and visual arts programs have grown exponentially and over 70 percent of the high school student body is involved in at least one fine arts class. These numbers are incredible and testify to our vision to provide opportunities for every student to be involved in fine arts and excel through notable growth in the skill level being taught and emphasized. The community surrounding us is taking note of the great things happening at Cumberland and this year through several generous donations, four outstanding fine arts seniors were each awarded a significant scholarship towards their college tuition.
With the completion of the new Fine Arts Center, Cumberland excitedly looks forward to producing full-length musical productions and theatrical plays, continuing the reputation for presenting excellent music concerts and dance shows, hosting competitions and community events as well as displaying our students’ exceptional artwork. Moving ahead, continued growth in the number of fine arts participants is gainfully expected each year as the exemplary top-notch fine arts program becomes the most sought-after fine arts high school in the state of Texas.
Take a look around the fine arts section of this website so get an inside look at the fine arts facilities. You may take a tour by viewing the "Take a virtual tour" page under "About Us" in the drop down menu at the top of the website. If you have any questions regarding the fine arts department, please email Tim Schodowski at [email protected]