Arts
As an academic department, our curriculum is designed to allow students to develop both the understanding and the creation of the arts. Every graduate of UHS has a hands-on experience in the arts, as well as a historical context for the discipline. The Course Catalog explains our curriculum in greater detail. In addition to our strong curriculum, the Arts faculty is proud to present an exciting program of events. We invite you to attend our performances, exhibits, and concerts, as this is the best way for you to experience our program. The vibrancy and energy of these events are a reflection of what students and teachers experience in our classrooms everyday. Our Arts Calendar can keep you up to date on our events.
Overview of the Arts Department:
- Over 75% of the student body is enrolled in arts classes
- We offer over 35 arts classes
- Over 80% of students take more than the minimum graduation requirement for the arts
- We host three theater productions, six art openings, and four music concerts every year
- A large percentage of the school’s Independent Studies projects are sponsored by the Arts faculty
- We have 12 Arts faculty members: seven full-time teachers and two part-time teachers; the Arts faculty are trained specifically in the disciplines that they teach
James Faerron
Arts Department Chair
Poster by Miranda Oakes, class of 2022
Join us as we launch the Spring Arts Festival -- 3 days of Visual Art. Music, and Theatre, all presented online for your viewing and listening pleasure, Tuesday-Thursday, June 1-3. See what the UHS Arts Classes have been up to during the third and fourth quarters, and watch the entire season of productions from the Theatre Department! The Festival will launch on Zoom at 2:00 PM on Tuesday, June 1.
The Spring Visual Arts Festival & Entire Festival Launch: Tuesday, June 1, 2:00 PM, synchronously. Join us on Zoom at 2:00 PM for the official Festival launch. And, for our first day of the Festival, check out UHS's Visual Arts program's work and see what the photography, ceramics, and drawing and painting classes have been up to as they made art remotely and a little bit; in-person! Also: check out the complete portfolios created by the AP Studio Arts Class. Support UHS' Student Artists and close out this school year with awesome art!
Join us on Zoom
Meeting ID: 941 8829 2728
Passcode: 174518
The Spring Music Festival: Wednesday, June 2, 11:00 AM (async). Then, at Wednesday's Spring Music Festival, listen to the incredible music stylings from Jazz Combo, Jazz Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra, and Advanced Choir! Support UHS' Student Musicians and finish 2020-2021 strong with awesome music!
The Spring Theatre Festival: Thursday, June 3, 11:00 AM (async): Finally, at Thursday's Spring Theatre Festival, watch the entirety of the '20-'21 Season of Shows created by the Theatre Department in this school year – including and especially, the final cut of the Spring Musical, Urinetown. And check out the Theatre Department's Senior Celebrations; we pay tribute in both words and images to the graduating senior class of 2021 and honor their contributions to the Theatre Department over the past four years. Finish the Festival – and this year of art-making in extraordinary times and ways – inspired with incredible theatre!
San Francisco University High School is Proud to Virtually Present:
The Spring Musical: Urinetown (the musical)
Music & Lyrics by Mark Hollmann • Book & Lyrics by Mark Hollmann & Greg Kotis
Directed by Susannah Martin • Music Directed by Joel Chapman • Choreographed by Natalie Greene
“What is Urinetown? Urinetown is here.”
Check out a preview of the show HERE!
"A side-splitting sendup of greed, love, revolution (and musicals!), in a time when water is worth its weight in gold...Urinetown is a hilarious musical satire of capitalism, populism, bureaucracy, municipal politics and musical theatre itself!
In a Gotham-like city, a terrible water shortage, caused by a 20-year drought, has led to a government-enforced ban on private toilets. citizens must use public amenities, regulated by a company that profits by charging admission for one of humanity's most basic needs. Amid the citizens, a hero decides that they’ve had enough and plans a revolution to lead the people to freedom!”
Please join us on Friday, May 21 at 7:00 PM for our Spring Musical Launch and Watch Party and be reminded, through really catchy song and dance numbers performed by 15 fantastic UHS students, of the Privilege to Pee. Admission is FREE!
Presented with permission from Music Theatre International (MTI).
A recording of this performance can be found HERE.
The UHS Music Department is Proud to Present:
The Spring Music Recitals!
• WHO: The Clarinet and Flute Quartets, the Jazz and Pop Music Combos, and the 2021 Songwriting Class
• WHAT: The Spring Music Recitals!
• WHEN: Thursday, March 11 (Music Groups) and Friday, March 12 (Songwriting) at 11:15 a.m.
• WHY: Who doesn’t want to listen to the musical and vocal stylings of our illustrious UHS Music Department? On Thursday and Friday, March 11 and 12, the Flute and Clarinet Quartets, Jazz Combos, and Pop Music Combo (led by Terrence Brewer) and the 2021 Songwriting students (led by Joel Chapman) will release audio and video recordings of what they’ve been working on during third quarter. The students in these groups have been exploring everything from French Neo-Classical to Ragtime to Modern, along with original Jazz compositions and freshly written pop songs! So, on March 11 and 12, make sure you go to our Arts Page to check out their incredible work!
2021 Spring Music Recitals
View the show here:
Please join the Arts Department on Thursday, March 4 to celebrate the students of AP Studio Art 2021.
The AP Studio Art class spends the majority of the school year producing a portfolio of artwork for submission to the AP College Board in May. Despite a global pandemic, and virtual classes, the AP Studio Art students of UHS persevered, and have produced excellent portfolios in the areas of drawing/painting, photography, and 3D design.
There are two components to every AP Portfolio:
Sustained Investigation: exhibits an in-depth commitment to a theme of the student’s choosing.
Selected Works: exhibits the development of a sense of excellence in art.
For this year’s exhibition, the AP Studio artists are exhibiting work from the Sustained Investigation section of their AP Portfolio. Please take a moment to look through their images, read their statements, and enjoy the show.
Students include:
Isabella Caro
Micaela Clark-Herrera
Cal Deam
Owen Flanagan
Lucy Hurlbut
Ava Jo
Annika Kral
Jiho Lee
Devin Leung
Brandly Mazariegos
Athena Nooney
Madelyn Ockner
Janavi Padala
Drew Phillips
Aurelie Roubinowitz
Amelie Scheil
San Francisco University High School is thrilled to announce that the 2021 Virtual Student Drama Series will take place over two nights, Thursday-Friday, Feb. 25-26 at 7 p.m., showcasing nine completely new virtual performance creations from nine UHS students: Anna Neumann-Loreck ‘21, Ava Jo ‘21, David Wignall ‘21, Janavi Padala ‘21, Lauren Schneider ‘21, Madelyn Ockner ‘21, Matthew Gin ‘21, Mishka Shirin-Stroh ’21, and Sara Tagol ‘21. The 2021 Virtual Student Drama Series is the culmination of over seven months of work by the Advanced Projects in Theatre class and it includes the participation, as creators, designers, performers, musicians, assistant directors, stage managers, editors, mixers, and technicians, of at least 30 UHS Students (and one faculty member!). The projects are varied and diverse—everything from adaptations of a short story by the great Gabriel Garcia Marquez and a Pixar short film; to an absurdly comedic piece about technology, the environment, and one family’s journey from canned food to wild lands; to a short musical about the value of friendships lost and reclaimed; to a sci-fi dystopian tale of one woman’s efforts to escape a frightening human experiment; to a series of vignettes about the Pandemic itself. The students in Advanced Projects have been imagining, creating, and writing, since at least August, and directing, re-writing, designing, rehearsing, recording, and editing since November, and they are excited to share their work with an audience.
Please join us in support of our incredibly talented Advanced Projects students when the Student Drama Series takes to the internet Thursday and Friday, February 25 and 26 at 7 p.m. on ZOOM. Admission is FREE!
Check out the recording of the 2021 Virtual Student Drama Series here.
Poster designed by Nikhil Chand ’24
San Francisco University High School Presents the winter play:
love and information
Written by Caryl Churchill
Directed by Michelle Talgarow
“-It doesn’t hurt to know it. Information and also love. -If you’re lucky.”
In these Pandemic days, much of our connection is on a screen. It’s a constant overload of overwhelming information. Caryl Churchill’s love and information shows a broad spectrum of human moments. Connection. Reminders of what we take for granted in human exchange. Snippets that tell life stories. Before Pandemic, we took for granted the live, eye-to-eye, body-to-body, breath-to-breath interaction of daily life. Now, we crave it.
This play gives a partial glimpse of the light at the end of this revolutionary tunnel. Here's to the moment when we can all hug again; share a meal, and chat with mutual understanding about the days when we couldn't.
Friday-Saturday, February 5-6, 7:00 p.m. on Zoom (Click here to see the recording)
Admission is FREE!
WINTER ARTS FESTIVAL
Monday-Wednesday, Dec. 14-16
Poster by Caroline Hall-Sherr
Join us as we launch the Winter Arts Festival -- 3 days of visual art and music, all presented online for your viewing and listening pleasure -- on Monday-Wednesday, December 14-16. See what the UHS Arts Classes have been up to during the first and second quarters!
The Winter Visual Arts Festival: Monday, December 14. For our first day of the Festival, check-out the work of UHS’ Visual Arts program, and see what the photography, ceramics, and drawing and painting classes, as well as some Arts-related Independent Studies, have been up to as they make art remotely! Also: check-out the progress that has been made by the AP Studio Arts Class – each student in this class is working towards a body of work which will culminate in a complete portfolio in the spring. Support UHS' Student Artists and close out this calendar year with awesome art!
The Winter Music Festival: Tuesday-Wednesday, December 15-16. Then, at Tuesday and Wednesday’s Winter Music Festival, listen to the incredible music stylings from Jazz Combo, Jazz Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra, and Advanced Choir, as well as the student-led A Cappella group, The Satonics! Support UHS' Student Musicians and finish 2020 strong with awesome music!
San Francisco University High School is Proud to Virtually Present:
Everybody
by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
WHO: The UHS Theatre Department
WHAT: The Fall Play: Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
WHEN: Thursday-Friday, October 29-30, 7:00 PM
WHERE: Zoom! (Click here or here to watch the recording)
WHY: Because you’ve never seen a UHS Production quite like this one! Support a cast of 20 students with 6 student designer/technicians as they all ask, right before Halloween, “What’s the meaning of life?” Complete with Dancing Skeletons!! (And it’s FREE!)
The UHS Music Department is Proud to Present: The Fall Recitals!
WHO: The Sax Quartet, Flute Quartet, a Jazz Combo, a Pop Combo, and VPX (Vocal Performance Experience)
WHAT: The Fall Recitals!
WHEN: Thursday, October 8 (Music Groups) and Friday, October 9 (VPX) at 11:15AM
WHY: Who doesn’t want to listen to the musical and vocal stylings of our illustrious UHS Music Department? On Thursday and Friday, October 8 and 9, the Sax Quartet, Flute Quartet, Jazz Combo, and Pop Combo (led by Terrence Brewer) and the students of VPX (led by Joel Chapman) will release audio and video recordings of what they’ve been working on this first quarter. The students in these groups have been exploring everything from Tchaikovsky to Miles Davis to Natalie Joachim to Sara Bareilles. So, make sure you go to our Arts Page during lunch and meetings period on those two days to check out their incredible work!
May 26 - 28
Asynchronous Launches:
Tuesday - Visual Arts @ 11 a.m.
Wednesday - Music @ 9 a.m.
Thursday - Theatre @ 9 a.m.
Did you miss our Spring Musical: Spring Awakening? Watch it here!
Check out the program for the the show HERE.
Writer credits:
Book & Lyrics by Steven Sater
Music by Duncan Sheik
Based on the play by Frank Wedekind
San Francisco University High School is Proud to Virtually Present
The Spring Musical: Excerpts from Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik’s Spring Awakening
Friday, May 22.
San Francisco University High School is Proud to Virtually Present
The Spring Musical: Excerpts from Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik’s Spring Awakening
Book & Lyrics by Steven Sater • Music by Duncan Sheik
Based on the play by Frank Wedekind
Directed by Susannah Martin • Music Directed by Joel Chapman • Choreographed by Natalie Greene
Live Launch & Viewing Party on Zoom: Friday, May 22, 4:30 PM
Join the cast, directors, and crew of the spring musical as we launch – and live watch, together – the video we made during our 4th Quarter Remote Rehearsals: a collection of songs and scenes from the Tony Award-winning musical,Spring Awakening. There will be a live “watch party” at 4:30 on Friday, May 22, followed by a Q&A where you can ask all your questions of the cast and crew!
Come watch your friends and classmates act, sing and dance (yes, dance!) their hearts out while they perform songs and scenes from this beloved musical!
An email will be sent to the UHS Community with instructions on how to join the "watch party" soon.
The Student Drama Series is Coming!!
Two performances only, 4:00 and 7:00 pm on Friday, February 28.
San Francisco University High School is thrilled to announce that the 2020 Student Drama Series will take place on Friday, February 28, showcasing eight completely new theatrical endeavors from eight UHS students: Lukas Bacho ’20, Claudia Bruce ’20, Hayden Deffarges ’20, Sebastian Fischer ’20, Kyra Kushner ’20, Eve Leupold ’20, Mary Qiu ’20, and Sadie Scott ‘20. The 2020 Student Drama Series is the culmination of 7 months of work by the Advanced Projects in Theatre class and it includes the participation, as creators, designers, performers, assistant directors, stage managers, and technicians, of at least 40 UHS students. The projects are varied and diverse—everything from an adaptation of scenes from the great Chinese Playwright Gao Xingjian‘s The Other Shore; to a comedic piece about love lost and found all centered around a women’s restroom and the “Missed Connections” page on craigslist; to an exploration of masculinity as filtered through the relationship between a father, a son, and the women in their lives; to a satirical horror-comedy mash-up that dives into the tricky issue of body dysmorphia as young women come-of-age. The students in Advanced Projects have been imagining, creating, and writing, since at least August, and directing, re-writing, designing, and rehearsing since November, and they are excited to share their work with an audience.
Please join us and support our incredibly talented Advanced Projects students when the Student Drama Series takes the stage on Friday, February 28 for TWO showings at 4:00 pm and 7:00 pm in the UHS Theater. Admission is FREE!
Jackson Street Gallery Professional Art Opening #3: Bloom
WHAT: Jackson Street Gallery Professional Art Opening #3: Bloom
ARTIST: Jackie Langelier (UHS, ’12)
CURATOR: Gale Jesi
WHEN: Opening Reception: Friday, January 31, 5 -7 p.m.; Art Show up from January 31-March 8, 2020
WHERE: Jackson Street Gallery and Lounge
WHY: For the third exhibition in the Jackson Street Gallery this year, UHS Photo Instructor Gale Jesi, is bringing UHS Alum, Jackie Langelier, ‘12, back to the school to present her work in a show titled Bloom.
Artist statement:
I am fascinated by the process of blooming—burgeoning life, vitality, beauty, and things coming into being—as well as complementary processes of decay and decomposition—that which encompasses ugliness, deterioration, and festering flesh. Decay is both the precondition for and fate of the evasive state of beauty, a common object of desire. Decay is both the beginning and the end in the cycle of beauty.
Blooming is also a significant component of any female-bodied experience.
My practice is imbued with a dual understanding of femininity as both essentially elegant and grotesque. Women and girls are often linked to motifs of blood, birth, incubation, purity, impurity, flowers, and pastel hues (especially shades of pink).
I am inspired by unhinged women—spinsters and widows, Edith Beales, Miss Havishams, and Lady MacBeths—women who live in both luxury and detritus, and who are cast apart (by their own volition or not) from mainstream society. I am also interested in the breakdown of sanity that occurs behind the façade of extreme affluence. This body of work explores the affinity between femininity and madness and the creeping horror of ostentatious wealth.
Jackie Langelier’s Artist Bio:
Jackie Langelier grew up in San Francisco and graduated from UHS in 2012. She received her BA in Art Practice and MA in Art History from Stanford University in 2017 where she was awarded the Robert M. Golden Medal for Excellence in the Humanities and Creative Arts, the Louis Sudler Prize in the Performing and Creative Arts and the John Shively Fowler Award in Photography. She is currently pursuing an MFA in film at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. When she is not taking photos, you can find Jackie frolicking among the Silverlake clown community.
San Francisco University High School Presents: Antigone X
San Francisco University High School Presents
Antigone X
By Paula Cizmar
Directed by Michelle Talgarow
“Your freedom, your laws, your nation –
do I have any part in it?”
Thebes is now a ruin surrounded by refugee camps. Police violence, terrorists and demagogues abound. At its heart Antigone X is a play about the place of women and femininity and the power to resist and reclaim that which belongs to them; it is a story about civil disobedience, written in direct response to the current administration. At what point do we draw the line? At what point do we stand up? Who do we answer to in the end, our proverbial king or a higher authority within ourselves?Antigone X is a contemporary meditation on love, power and war, based on the classic by Sophocles.
Friday-Saturday, January 24-25, 2020
7:30 PM
UHS Theater
3150 Washington Street
Tickets available HERE
Winter Arts Festival, December 6
The Visual Arts Opening Reception, with a show featuring the work of every student enrolled in a visual art class, is from 5:30 to 7:00 PM in the Jackson Street Gallery.
The Winter Concert follows at 7:00 PM in the Theatre, featuring the talents of Advanced Choir, Chamber Orchestra, Jazz Combo, Jazz Ensemble, and UHS’ very own Satonics.
A tea and cookies reception will follow the concert at about 8:30 PM in the Student Center.
- Student Art Show: Jackson Street and Washington Street Galleries (5:30-7:00)*
- Concert: Theater (7:00-9:00)*
- Post-Concert Reception: Student Center (8:30-9:00)
Let’s closeout – and celebrate – the fall semester with art and music!
Admission is FREE!
*Please note earlier start time from years previous!
Fall Concert, November 7
Please join us for the first music event of the 2019-2020 school year: the FALL CONCERT. Want to find out how diverse the skills are of our incredible Music Department? Well, on Thursday, November 7th, you can! The UHS Music Department will perform a wide variety of music, with a mix of Jazz, Blues, Bossa Nova, Afro-Caribbean, Funk, as well as vocal music from Eastern European folk, musical theater, and contemporary choral, and also, the music of Verdi and Sibelius! What an incredible mix! The concert will feature Advanced Chorus, and the Chamber Orchestra, directed by Joel Chapman and Jessica Bejarano, respectively; the Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Combo, directed by Terrence Brewer; and the student-led a cappella group, The Satonics.
Admission is FREE!!
WHO: Over 60 UHS Students from all four grades – and there’s an especially high concentration of freshman in both jazz groups, making for a wonderful shot of new talent in our music department!
WHEN: Thursday, November 7, 7:00 PM*
WHERE: UHS Theater, 3150 Washington Street
WHY: Because the UHS Music Department is AWESOME and full of amazing and dynamic musicians and teachers - that's why!
*Please note earlier start time from years past!
Jackson Street Gallery Professional Art Opening #2: Are We Not All Animals?
Opening Reception: Friday, November 1, 5-7 PM; Art Show up from November 1-29
ARTIST: t.c. moore
CURATOR: Jenifer Kent
WHERE: Jackson Street Gallery & Lounge
WHY:
Are We Not All Animals
Please join the UHS Arts Department on Nov. 1st from 5-7 pm in the Jackson Street Gallery for the opening reception of “Are We Not All Animals?” an exhibition of mixed-media work by Bay Area artist t.c. moore.
Moore says, “I am an environmental artist who uses an array of natural materials, horse hair, hoof clippings, wood shavings, teeth, feathers and fur to create work which celebrates the organic unity of all living things. My work is inspired by the Biophilia hypothesis, a term coined by E.O. Wilson which states that humans as a species have a universal love for the natural world. Visually, my work combines ephemeral assemblies of natural materials mixed with traditional art materials, graphically strong and at times, enigmatic, ethereal, ghostlike and primeval. My work balances the patterns of nature with the formalism created with my hands. Looking, collecting and touching nature’s materials are integral with the process of creating my work.”
t.c. moore Artist Bio
t.c moore’s work has been exhibited across the United States in solo and juried exhibitions. She has taught drawing, watercolor, process media and methods at Berkeley City College, UC Berkeley Extension, and the University of Oregon in the School of Architecture and Allied Arts. Her travels have included studies at the Glasgow School of Art, as well as teaching a field studies seminar in Italy’s Veneto region. She earned an MFA in Studio Arts from JFK University in Berkeley, a Masters in Landscape Architecture, a Bachelors of Architecture from the University of Oregon, and an Associate degree in Interior Design from Mt. Royal University in Canada. Her work questions the definitions and boundaries of drawing, painting, sculpture and fiber arts and she encourages you to look at her website www.tcmoorestudio.com.
San Francisco University High School Presents: Under Milk Wood
By Dylan Thomas
Directed by Jon Tracy*
*Member of SDC, the Stage Directors & Choreographers Union
“Time passes. Listen. Time passes.
Come closer now.
Only you can hear the houses sleeping in the streets in the slow
deep salt and silent black, bandaged night.”
Written by the great Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas in 1953 – and completed a month before his death – and first performed in 1954 as a radio play, Under Milk Wood spans the course of one full day, as an omniscient narrator invites us to listen to the dreams and innermost thoughts of the inhabitants of Llareggub – a small, Welsh, seaside town.
October 25-26, 2019 at 7:30 PM
All Tickets $10.00
UHS Theater
3150 Washington Street
Under Milk Wood is performed with the permission of Samuel French, Ltd
Jackson Street Gallery Professional Art Opening #1: Listening Without Ears to Tongueless Voices
Opening Reception: Friday, Sept. 13, 5:00-7 p.m.; Art Show up from Sept. 13-Oct. 25
ARTIST: Kate Rannells
CURATOR: Lisa Carroll
WHERE: Jackson Street Gallery and Lounge
WHY: For the first exhibition in the Jackson Street Gallery this fall, UHS Arts Instructor Lisa Carroll, is bringing Oakland Sculptor Kate Rannells, to UHS. Ms. Rannells will show several works that consider ideas of what communication can be within the more than human languages of the natural world and how the human perception of time infiltrates our understanding of nature. The work encourages us to shift our understanding, to perhaps hear with our hands, and feel with our eyes. “Gold Scroll: What Will Remain II,” an installation made of imitation and genuine gold leaf, metal foil and salt evokes the process of decay and the release of all material back to the earth. “(A)drift in (An)amnesis: We Repass, in Our Memory, Our Whole Life,”a haptic sound sculpture made of found wood, electronics and sound asks the viewer turned audience to engage with all their senses, in particular the sense of touch. And finally, an installation of discarded maps transformed into a kind of visual dictionary of mycelium. Opening Friday, Sept. 13 from 5-7p.
Artist statement:
Darkness is not the absence of light, but full with unseen presence. Time is not fixed, but a subjective and personal experience. What we perceive is not Truth with a capital T, but our human perspective. The need to make sense creates dualistic order which breaks up the squishy continuum of existence into self/other, good/bad, black/white. This habit of making sense through rigid and dividing classifications is hard to break.
Art participates with existence and matter in physically engaged, nonlinear, nonhierarchical ways. It is a means beyond divisions. Making begins with an intervention into the state of matter, an interruption in its process. Matter is not inert, but active, with a language of its own. Processes like accretion, corrosion, erosion, compression, and expansion are all part of the lexicon of matter. Using salt, water, rust, weight, air, sound and time, I speak the lyricism of matter as a metaphor to our relationship to ecology and nature.
Kate Rannells artist bio:
I am a sculptor based in Oakland, California I have a BA in Art Criticism with a minor in Sculpture from Fairhaven College, Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. I have just completed the Dual-Degree Masters program at San Francisco Art Institute, MFA in Studio Art, MA in History and Theory of Contemporary Art in 2019.
Arts Calendar
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UHS Theater
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UHS Theater
