Visual & Performing Arts

Bayhill’s Visual & Performing Arts Program gives students opportunities to develop their skills and express themselves through visual art, digital media, music, and performance. Many Bayhill students have particular strengths and interests in the arts, and our program gives them both the instruction and the space to develop their creative work. 

Annual Art Show
Each year, Bayhill celebrates student creativity with an exhibition at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley. Student artwork created throughout the year is displayed for families and community members, and the Bayhill Band performs a selection of songs. Creative writing and poetry may also be shared as part of the event. 

Visual Arts

Students interested in developing their skills in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, digital media, and other forms of visual art have opportunities to build their abilities through multiple years of instruction. 

Art Fundamentals is an introductory course in which students learn about art primarily by making it. Students design, assemble, revise, and reflect on their work while developing foundational skills and learning to look at art with a critical eye. 

Advance Art: Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, and Sculpture In Advanced Art, students expand their knowledge of artistic techniques, materials, and ideas. Students work across a variety of media, including sculpture, drawing, painting, and printmaking, while developing greater independence and confidence in their creative process. 

Studio Art I: Self and Context gives students the opportunity to complete more in-depth projects, some based on specific assignments and others developed collaboratively with the instructor. Students strengthen their ability to discuss and critique artwork while exploring the role of art in culture, both past and present. 

Studio Art II: Surfaces and Meaning explores how artists use different materials to create surfaces, visual effects, and meaning. Students examine their own work alongside the work of notable artists and consider how choices of materials can shape the ideas and emotions a work communicates. 

Photography and Digital Media I & II  are interdisciplinary courses emphasizing creative and interactive projects. Students explore historic and contemporary fine art photography while developing their own photography portfolios and learning to create and edit digital multimedia work. 

In the second year, students build on these skills through more in-depth analysis and increasingly sophisticated multimedia projects. 

Performing Arts

Band is largely performance oriented, with students working together to develop a repertoire that is challenging, rewarding to perform, and musically instructive. Through songs drawn from the rich history of popular music, students develop fundamentals of music theory, disciplined performance practices, and an understanding of the historical and cultural contexts in which music is created. 

Students also explore musical styles and traditions from around the world and consider the ways music intersects with mathematics, science and physics, visual art, technology, sociology, language, and creative writing. 

Additional offerings may include Dance, Drama, Creative Writing and other courses based on student interest and faculty availability.