The Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts (often referred to simply as LaGuardia or "LaG") is a public high school in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of the Upper West Side in Manhattan, New York City. It specializes in teaching visual arts and performing arts. It is operated by the New York City Department of Education.
Situated at 100 Amsterdam Avenue between West 64th and 65th Streets, near Lincoln Center, the school was created by merging the High School of Music & Art and the School of Performing Arts. The school aims to prepare students for higher education, including conservatory study, and a career in the arts.
The school is the only one of New York City's nine specialized high schools to receive special funding from the New York State Legislature through the Hecht-Calandra Act, as well as the only specialized high school that does not use the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT) as admissions criteria.
The school in 2019âÂÂ2020 had 3,011 students and 164 staff members, with a teacherâÂÂstudent ratio of 1:20.
The High School of Music & Art was founded in 1936 by Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, who sought to establish a public school where students could hone their talents in music, art, and the performing arts. Music & Art â colloquially known as "The Castle on the Hill" â was located in Manhattan at Convent Avenue and 135th Street in what has since become part of City College of New York's South Campus; the building is home to A. Philip Randolph Campus High School. LaGuardia regarded Music & Art as the "most hopeful accomplishment" of his 12 years as mayor.
In 1948, a similar institution â the High School of Performing Arts â was created to harness students' talents in dance. It was located on West 46th Street in Midtown Manhattan.
The schools merged on paper in 1961. But they only moved to the same building in 1985. Designed by Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano and named in honor of LaGuardia, the school sits next to Lincoln Center.
The school's alumni association, which has a full-time executive director and offices at the school, functions as an independent charitable organization organized under the laws of New York. Alumni of LaGuardia and its predecessor schools have endowed scholarships and support for special programs, school events, and reunions held at the school and throughout the world.
Students at LaGuardia take a full academic course load while participating in conservatory-style arts concentration. Each student majors in one studio, choosing from either Dance, Drama, Art, Vocal Music, Instrumental Music, or Technical Theater.
Students can take honors classes by choice or programming. LaGuardia also offers several Advanced Placement courses.
The school presents an annual musical. The Musical Theater class, an elective school-wide course, is offered through the collaboration of faculty members from Music, Drama, Dance, and the Tech Theater Studios, culminating in a major musical theater performance. Productions have included Gypsy, Les Misérables, West Side Story, Hair, Ragtime, Hairspray, Guys and Dolls, Sweet Charity, Grease, In the Heights, Beauty and the Beast, The Sound of Music, and Cinderella.
For the first two years of education, the art department stresses traditional artistic skills and discipline. Students work on drawing from observation, learning color theory, and the principles of design. Students then choose vocationally oriented courses in the fine arts such as Digital Media, Architecture, Painting, Sculpture, Fashion Design, and Photography. In their senior year, art majors can submit portfolios to the department for consideration for a place in the senior galleries, which are a series of shows organized and constructed by the chosen students and a student curator.
The music department has two symphony orchestras, five choirs, four string ensembles, two concert bands, two jazz bands, a chamber group, a gospel choir, a show choir, and an opera company with a pit orchestra. Vocal and instrumental students study in a conservatory curriculum with three hours of music per day, including performing ensembles, electives (in areas such as music technology and composition), music theory and history. The department has worked with composers and organizations such as Eric Whitacre, Josh Groban, Arturo O'Farrill, Béla Fleck and NPR's Radiolab.
Every student in the instrumental department must join a performing ensemble and a class specific to their instrument's musicological classification (one of three winds ensembles, three string orchestras or a percussion corps). After completing their first year with an ensemble, students may fulfill the remainder of performance credits with electives.
Every student in the vocal department must perform with Elementary Chorus in their first or second year. At the secondary level, students must perform with either Mixed Chorus or Girls' Chorus. Third-year vocal music majors must complete an additional year of chorus, performing either with Mixed Chorus, Women's Chorus, or Senior Chorus.
Every music student must pass an elementary sight-singing course and a year of music theory and history.
The Dance Department is based on pre-conservatory-based training in the field of dance. Students spend the first two years training solely in classical ballet and the combined modern techniques of Graham and Horton. In their junior year, they may take musical theater and tap classes. The junior class performs for the first time junior year. The second semester of junior year, they take a choreography class in which they create pieces of their own to perform. Senior year, the dancers take career-management classes and perform in the Winter Showcase and the Graduation Dance Concert.
Alumni of the program include Desmond Richardson and Suzanne Vega.
The Technical Theater Studio is a professional training program that provides students with the skills and techniques necessary to pursue a career in technical theater. Concepts and aesthetics are taught using contemporary teaching methods that use state-of-the-art equipment. Professionally produced events in the concert hall, thrust-stage theater, and black-box theater provide students with practical hands-on work experiences.
LaGuardia offers 21 sports on the varsity level, most of which compete in the Public School Athletic League (PSAL). Fall season sports include bowling, swimming, volleyball, boys and girls cross country, fencing (co-ed), and soccer. Winter season sports include basketball, gymnastics, and indoor track. In the spring, the school offers baseball, outdoor track, tennis, volleyball (boys), handball, softball, and tennis (girls).
The 1980 dramatic film Fame was based on student life at the School of Performing Arts before its merger into LaGuardia High School. A television series based on the film, Fame, aired in 1982. It was adapted again as a stage musical, which premiered in 1988. A loose remake of the film was released in 2009.
The school has documented issues with heavy drugs such as opioids and other pharmaceuticals.
Mental health is also a big issue at the school. Students have sometimes struggled with the demanding workload at the school. Other obligations have taken a toll on the mental health of the student body, especially in recent years. The NYCDOE's school snapshot surveys shows that 81% of students at the school say they experienced stress. In the 2019âÂÂ2020 NYCDOE surveys, 46% of students reported that their teachers support them when they are upset.