March 18, 2024

Taunton Civic Chorus Awards Scholarships

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Taunton, MA, -- The Taunton Civic Chorus has awarded two 2021 Bob Keith Memorial Scholarships to graduating seniors at Taunton High School – Aidan Scully and Ana Rodrigues.

The $500 scholarship is awarded to a graduating senior from a greater Taunton area high school who has been an active participant in an organized musical activity such as chorus, band, drama club, or dance, and has been accepted into a 2 or 4-year degree program. This year, a second scholarship of $250 was awarded.

TCC acknowledged Scully for his participation in the Taunton High School Drama Club, Latin Club, participation in the Senior District Music Festival, the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild Drama Festival and Contest Day, and Playzoomers, a national virtual theater troupe.

Scully, the son of Christopher and Elisa Scully, found his senior year particularly challenging because of the pandemic. Many events were cancelled or held virtually, so Scully took the opportunity to “branch out in the performing arts experience” by entering contests and honing his playwrighting and filmmaking skills.

“The past year has stripped the performing arts of its conventional definition, “said Scully. “But I have found that this allows a new definition to be added in its place.”

Scully said the pandemic has allowed him to discover himself more as an artist and branch out into fields of performance he might not have known had he not been forced to “reconsider what the arts mean to me.”

“No virtual event can replicate the emotions of stepping on stage for the first time on opening night, or the ethereal beauty of hearing your voice resonate in Symphony Hall,” Scully said. But he added that the arts are more than that. “The arts are what we make of them.”

Scully is graduating number two in his class at Taunton High. He will attend Harvard University in the Fall.

Receiving a $250 scholarship is Ana Rodrigues, the daughter of Mary Ellen and Agustinho Rodrigues of East Taunton.

While attending Taunton High, Rodrigues was the Senior Class President, and participated in the Key Club (President), the Taunton High School Band and Symphonic Band, and Woodwind Quintet. She also was an oboist in the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra.

Although the pandemic cut back on the number of concerts in which Rodrigues usually participates, she took the opportunity to perform in many recording projects, including what she describes as an ambitious recording of Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments.

“I may not be playing in the great concert halls of New England anymore, but I am understanding music in a depth I never had before,” she said.

Rodrigues will attend Yale University after graduation.

Taunton Civic Chorus, Scholarship

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