Welcome to the Office of Fine & Performing Arts

The Department of Fine Arts includes Dance, Drama, Music and Visual Arts.  Fine Arts instruction in the Atlanta Public Schools is standards-driven, sequential, substantive and comprehensive. Fundamental skills established in primary school are deepened and expanded upon each year so that our high school students graduate with appreciation of and skill in the arts.  A quality Fine Arts program reflects the Georgia Quality Core Curriculum Standards in which students create, perform, produce; analyze and develop aesthetic understanding; demonstrate knowledge of artists, art history and world cultures; and make connections among the content of the arts, other disciplines and everyday life.

 

Please visit our Ignite Arts website: www.igniteart.weebly.com

Spotlights                                                                                                                                   

 

 

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NATALIE COLBERT SERVES AS STATE PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN STRING TEACHERS ASSOCIATION

Natalie Fisher Colbert has been the Sutton Middle School Orchestra Director for 30 years. The Sutton Orchestra Program maintains an enrollment of 100-135 students. The program has had as many as 170 students. Each year, three Sutton orchestras attend the District Large Group Performance Evaluation (LGPE) for evaluation and have consistently earned Superior and Excellent ratings. The orchestra has performed in the All-American Music Festival in Orlando, Florida earning Superior ratings for 10 consecutive years. They have also performed in the National Adjudicators Invitational earning Superior ratings. In 2010 the orchestra was awarded “Most Outstanding Strings, “Best Middle School Orchestra”

Mrs. Colbert has developed the orchestra program at Sutton to be one that is inclusive and reaches out to all students. An important aspect of the curriculum is chamber music and exposure to music of many cultures.  In the orchestra program at Sutton there is a Private Lesson Program, Mariachi Ensemble and a Jazz/Hip-Hop Orchestra is currently developing. The classroom has frequent professional coaching sessions, master classes and performances by Atlanta Symphony Orchestra members and community musicians.

Mrs. Colbert is the 2011 President for the Georgia Chapter of the American String Teachers Association. She frequently serves as adjudicator and clinician throughout the state as well as in Tennessee and Alabama. She has also recently been elected as the GMEA State Orchestra Division Chairman for 2011 -2013.