Saturday, June 8, starting at 11:00 am, pack up your family and picnic blanket and head to Waterfront Park, behind Sea Level Restaurant, for the second annual Waterfront Music Festival where students from all schools in the Newburyport school district will perform music, dance and dramatic pieces through the day.  The district Performing Arts Department is presenting the second annual Waterfront Music Festival to highlight performing groups from all schools, and students of all ages across the district, including all range of music, dance and theater arts. Half-hour performances begin at 11 and go through the day until 3. Performances from the youngest students will start in the mid-morning and the day will end in the afternoon with Newburyport High School students. The Waterfront Music Festival is free and open to the public, and attendees are welcome to join for one or two performances or stay for the whole day. At 1:00, there will be an intermission for families to enjoy their picnics, explore offerings from local vendors, or stroll through town.

Enjoy our full video here and for other great short clips go to the Newburyport VIP Instagram profile and view under the VIP Kids & Family Highlight. You do need an Instagram login in order to view the hightlights.  https://www.instagram.com/newburyportvip/ 

Check the schedule to see when your favorites are performing, or just come by and see what’s on! Note the original schedule posted below has been amended. The event will begin at 11 am and end at 3 pm.

11:00 – 11:30 Bresnahan Elementary School Grades 1-3
11:35 -11:50 Molin 4th & 5th Grade Chorus (All Molin Students!)
11:55-12:30 Molin 5th Gr. Band & Orchestra
12:30-1:00 Nock and NHS Chorus, NHS Dance
1:00 -1:45 INTERMISSION with local vendors and food trucks
1:45 – 2:30 Nock Band and Orchestra
2:30 -3:00 NHS Theatre and Dance
3:00 – 3:45 NHS Concert and Rock Band

The mission of the festival is to feature groups from all schools in Newburyport – the Bresnahan Elementary School, the Edward G. Molin Upper Elementary School, the Rupert A. Nock Middle School, and the Newburyport High School. The district is especially excited to give the students in the new orchestra program a chance to demonstrate all they have learned.

Jamie Sokolowski, chorus and orchestra teacher at both the Nock School and the Molin School, is also the festival’s organizer. She hopes to create a fun-filled day program that brings together the community with the students, allowing community members to see all that the young people in the Newburyport school district have achieved in the performing arts. “We’re putting the festival out to see how it does, see what happens, and to collect community feedback,” Sokolowski said. “We’d like to make this an annual tradition for the performing arts. We hope that each year it grows more.” The NHS band director, Steve Cohen, has also been working hard to help the kids prepare. He has been collaborating with the younger grades as part of our district wide effort to make connections across grade levels. Both Jamie and Steve are featured working with the Molin 5th grade band in preparation for the big event!

Molin 5th grade band practicing for the big day!