Clovis Unified demonstrates a strong commitment to the Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA). This commitment is to the students of CUSD as well as the community at large. We believe that the Fine Arts are an integral part of any society…so they must be part of a student’s education. In addition to curricular courses offered grades 1-12 in the Arts, CUSD provides over 95 VAPA programs that are co-curricular in nature. From choir to band to orchestra…from photography to drama to ceramics…dance to art to stagecraft…students have opportunities to immerse themselves in the Arts. Our classrooms and our Performing Arts venues (The Mercedes Edwards Theater and the Performing Arts Center) are some of the finest in the state. VAPA is a way of life in Clovis Unified.

HISTORY OF EXCELLENCE

The Clovis Unified School District has more than 12,500+ students enrolled in the music elective programs, with every elementary student in grades 1-6 receiving classroom music instruction. The elective programs include band, chorus, orchestra, jazz groups, AP music theory, with music appreciation, piano keyboarding, digital audio recording, and guitar offered at some sites. Our instrumental and vocal ensembles are seen and heard throughout the United States and worldwide.

Clovis Unified performing groups have been selected to appear at regional, state, divisional, and national music educator’s conferences. Each year many Clovis Unified students are selected as members of local, regional, state, western division, and national honor groups. The marching bands have appeared in the Pasadena Rose Parade, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and represented California in President Ronald Reagan’s Inaugural Parade in Washington, DC, and are perennial award winners at various festivals and competitions throughout California.

The Clovis Unified School District is proud to provide its’ performing arts students and the community with the CUSD Performing Arts Center, which houses both the Paul Shaghoian Concert Hall and the Dan Pessano Black Box Theatre. The Performing Arts Center is a state-of-the-art facility, and has been recognized as the finest concert hall of its’ kind “west of the Mississippi”. Well before its first anniversary, the Shaghoian Concert Hall has attracted the likes of the St. Olaf Band (Northfield, Minnesota), the David Binney Quartet NYC), and the Concordia College Choir (Moorhead, Minnesota).