Music

Create and Perform with Confidence
The music faculty strives to develop each student’s musicianship and performance skills. This is achieved through a vigorous performance schedule and integration of music history and theory in each course.

The student experience is enhanced by interaction with visiting performers who prepare recitals and workshops, and by traveling to attend concerts. Each ensemble participates in regional festivals to gain exposure to other schools' ensembles, receive adjudication, and participate in clinics. The school’s modern and spacious recording studio is large enough to record any size group, from jazz and rock bands to chamber ensembles. Its substantial footprint, significant ceiling height, and abundant reflective surfaces provide a flexible acoustical environment in which musicians can record with varying degrees of room ambience.

Suffield’s music curriculum teaches students to:
• Understand the integration of music history and theory
• Be proficient in digital and analog recording technology
• Collaborate and perform with peer musicians
• Develop a greater appreciation for writing and reading music

Gooch-Vincenti Scholarship
The scholarship was established through a generous gift from long-time Suffield faculty member Bradford C. Gooch. It provides tuition for a rising senior that excels in the arts—not just as a good artist, but also one with the potential to pursue a career in the field and whose passions and talents elevate the quality of artistic life in the Suffield Academy culture. In creating the scholarship, Brad noted, “I don’t want it to be a ‘best-of-the-year prize’ but something for a student whose talent and passion knock your socks off, whose work gives off that special frisson of wonder and delight.” In addition to honoring artistic excellence that elevates life at Suffield, Brad’s gift aimed to symbolize his personal love for Suffield Academy and recognize Mario Vincenti, who taught visual arts at Suffield from 1956 to 1994.