On Friday November 20th, OYIS held its MYP Celebration of the Arts, showcasing the various works of art and music the MS and HS students had made and studied since school began in August. This semester's celebration overcame obstacles, as COVID regulations forced the school to host it online rather than as an assembly, as in past years. The presentation is created by Ms. Nicole Panoho, head of visual art, and music, headed by Mr. Vlad Jocic.

The celebration would usually be a live assembly, but due to current circumstances, parents had to stay home. The students remained (socially distanced) at school. Though a challenge, the coordinators for the celebration managed to maintain the core meaning of this event, the idea of praising the artistic work and talent of the MYP.

The presentation was formatted with the musical presentations first: Grade 7's musical performance, to Grade 8's, and then to the Grade 9 and 10's elective musical performances. Afterwards, there were Grade 9 and 10's elective arts presentations.

The audience reception for this event was of much praise to each of the performances and presentations. In the Grade 7 room, students were attentively looking at the other MYP students' presentations, giving a hearty round of applause at the end of each. This reception was made to the other grades gathered in their homerooms, and to the parents watching online.

Mr. Vlad had much to say about the music presentations, as every grade had music to show, but to highlight all of the different grades' efforts, he said, "I would like to thank everyone for their hard work in these challenging times, and for basically proving that the show must go on, and that we can put up a great show no matter what."

Miss Nicole said many positive things about the Grade 9 and 10 students' artistic talents. When asked about her opinion on this Celebration of the Arts she said, "For me, I find something special about this, and I wish for the next time to be more open with the art, as a lot of the detail is missed by just taking a picture, and not being able to talk to the artist about that piece."

Although we all miss live gatherings and in-person celebrations, we're lucky to have so many talented and dedicated artists and musicians in our community, and it was a pleasure for all to see the results of their months of effort. If you missed the show, please take a look! The entire program was recorded and is shared below.