Our Youth

Spring Concert Showcases Fontbonne Talent

Amanda Powers prepares for her performance.
Amanda Powers prepares for her performance.

From Baroque to Broadway, from Hollywood to Hammerstein with a touch of hard-shoe dancing in Celtic or modern stylings, there was something for every musical taste at the Fontbonne Hall Academy’s annual Spring Concert in Bay Ridge.

Fontbonne’s choral groups, the Vocal Ensemble and the Select Chorus, presented well-loved selections from such Broadway favorites as The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables and My Fair Lady, with a bit of the Beatles for good measure. Both groups were conducted and prepared by Una Marie O’Donnell, instructor of music at the shool, who herself performs with the New York Choral Society and appeared with Andrea Bocelli at Barclays Center and on Live from Lincoln Center.

The Baroque period was represented by a performance of Christoph Willibald von Gluck’s Gavotte in A Major by Sophia Capellini, sophomore at Fontbonne, who also studies at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music.

The quick, intricate footwork of hard-shoe Irish stepdance was represented by junior Tara Muldoon and freshman Amanda Powers, both competitive dancers with tremendous stage presence and experience.

A more modern approach was represented by Krista Polizzotto, senior, whose competition piece, Desert Sands, joined Middle Eastern music with contemporary tap.

Caitlin Escudero’s Wushu exhibition combined Chinese martial-arts style with the music of Two Steps from Hell, more familiar to theater-goers as composers of movie trailers for such major motion pictures as the Harry Potter films, Star Trek and the Dark Knight.

Fontbonne’s Vocal Ensemble delights the audience with highlights from the musical, Phanto
Fontbonne’s Vocal Ensemble delights the audience with highlights from the musical, Phanto