A crowd of over 350 people joined friends and family of talented students at the 2011 Talent Show.
The talent show, an annual event for Terra Nova, helps fund the school’s newspaper, the Terra Nova Times. With Alyssa Jenkins, journalism teacher, this event brings a plethora of talent to the Terra Nova community. Her obvious enthusiasm for her students and her commitment to their academic success shined through all night as she told me tidbits about each student.
“I could tell you something about every kid in this show. They are all my kids,” she said with a grin.
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Acts included everything from break-dancing to acoustic guitar to dance performances.
With five teachers acting as judges, the criteria was based around their subjective view of each act. All performances were judged on a 5-point scale, with 1 meaning “Ouch, is it over yet?” to 5 meaning “Awesome, very impressive!”
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The prize for 1st place included a $50 gift card to Goodfellas Pizza, the major Talent Show sponsor; 2nd place was a $25 combined amount for Starbucks and iTunes; and 3rd place was a $10 gift card to Starbucks.
Justin Phu, who played his own song “Bella” (sung in English and Italian), took 3rd place, and Andrew Lee, who played the piano tune “Silver Clouds Chasing the Moon”, took 2nd place.
The indie-folk band Goodluck Mondays took 1st place, winning the judges and the audience hearts with their songs “Winter Winds” by Mumford and Sons and their own tune “The Day”.
The night ended with one thing clear to everyone in the room: almost all of the students in the talent show had benefitted from having band. With the Rob Schnieder Music Foundation having pulled their funds from Pacifica School District, watching their students made it abundantly clear to me that the level of performance could not have been possible without the Foundation’s grants to the district.
“This is why band should stay in schools," Alyssa Jenkins said to me after several of the uplifting and inspiring performances. “And you can quote me on that.”
