Chorus, Musical Theatre and IB Music
“Caritas, Constantia, Excellentia, Integritas"”
Chorus Men's Chorus Women's Chorus Honors Ensemble Paxon Show Choir
IB Music Musical Theatre About the Director Calendar of Events
CHORUS
Paxon School for Advanced Studies offers an extensive and diverse choral music studies program. All choruses sing classical and contemporary music and are required to learn repertoire in at least two foreign languages.
Sight-singing, ear-training, music theory and notation are all a standard part of the curriculum for all choruses. The Chorus Department gives 2 major performances a year that features all choruses. In addition, all choruses perform at Solo & Ensemble Festival and Music Performance Assessment Festival.
Paxon has 4 choral ensembles, IB Music and a Musical Theatre class. All courses are performance based, which means participating students perform at schools, local venues such as the Times Union Center for the Performing Arts, Florida Theatre, City Hall, national conventions, meetings and private functions.
These courses also include workshops and clinics with notable guest Artistic Directors and field trips to performances such as the Nutcracker, Lion King, Jacksonville Symphony and professional musical theatre productions.
In addition to district and state music performance assessments an out-of-county trip is scheduled in the spring.
The season closes with a banquet and awards ceremony in April.
For more information on any of these performing arts courses in the please contact Deborah McDuffie at 904-693-7583 ext. 125 or e-mail mcduffied2@duvalschools.org
MEN’S CHORUS
Open to students in grades 9-12, this 30-voice all male chorus sings a wide variety of material from spirituals like “De Animals A Comin” to Temptations classics like “My Girl”, complete with moves. Twice a year the Men’s Chorus joins the Womens Chorus in concert.
WOMEN'S CHORUS
Open to all female singers in grades 9-12, this 60-voice ladies chorus sings repertoire in 3 and 4-part harmony from Benjamin Britten’s “Ceremony of Carols” and “Hotaru Koi” to Motown’s “Best of the Girl Groups”.
HONORS ENSEMBLE
Open to students in grades 10-12 with at least one year of chorus, this 65-voice chorus sings more advanced material, with a concentration in a cappella music such as Moses Hogan’s “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho” ‘Hallelujah Chorus” and “O Filii et Filae”.
PAXON SHOW CHOIR
Admission is by invitation only to this exclusive 16-voice chorus. Membership in Honors Chorus experience is required. Show Choir explores post-high school choral repertoire with 5-8 voice part-singing.
This group performs a wide variety of music such as the spiritual “Bashana Habaha”, “Pasko Na Naman” and “The Prayer”. Choreography is an important component of this ensemble.
IB MUSIC
IB Music is one of the 6th subjects in the IB Diploma Programme. Students may elect to take STANDARD LEVEL programme which can be one or two years, or the two-year HIGHER LEVEL programme.
Emphasis is on music composition and performance, with additional study in music history and appreciation, and music theory and harmonic analysis.
Musical Theatre class explores the history of musical theatre as well as producing musical revues and full productions. Students split into theatre troupes and are responsible for presenting one production every 9 weeks.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
2006 Jacksonville Cultural Council Arts Awards “Educator of the Year” and African American Literary and Media Lifetime Achievement “Phoenix” Award winner Deborah McDuffie boasts an impressive career combining talents in production, performance, composing, arranging, marketing and teaching.
Credited with being the first female composer/producer in the advertising industry, Ms. McDuffie is a multi award-winning pioneer, a “behind the scenes” legend, so to speak.
She has composed/produced/performed with Janet Jackson, Gladys Knight, Al Green, Grover Washington, Jr, Patti Labelle, Luther Vandross, Michael Bolton, Roberta Flack, Will Smith, Ashford & Simpson, Wynton Marsalis, James Ingram, Jennifer Holliday, Temptations, Saturday Night Live…and more.
Ms. McDuffie is currently Chair of the Fine Arts Department at Paxon School for Advanced Studies and Executive Director of Arts4Jax, Inc. a community performing arts foundation in Jacksonville, Florida.
She is Artistic Director for the extremely popular contemporary youth ensemble Jacksonville Mass Choir.