MHS Musings: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

A preview of the MHS Limelight Players' annual fall musical, opening this weekend

The Millburn High School Limelight Players are excited to present “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” as their annual fall musical this upcoming weekend. “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” is a hilarious tale of overachievers' angst, chronicling the experience of six adolescent outsiders vying for the spelling championship of a lifetime. The spelling bee is the one place where they can stand out and fit in at the same time, as the characters undeniably grow through their experience. The musical will be performed on Friday, Nov. 16 and Saturday, Nov. 17 at 7:30 p.m. in the MHS auditorium. Tickets are $10 if you call 973-376-3600 extension 455 in advance, and they are $12 at the door. Seats are reserved. The ensemble …

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MHS Announces 17 National Merit Finalists

Merit Scholarship Awards will be announced in late spring.

From Millburn Township School District Seventeen Millburn High School seniors have been named National Merit Finalists in the 2012 Competition for National Merit Scholarships. They are among 15,000 students who are now eligible for Merit Scholarship Awards which will be announced in late spring. This year’s finalists are: Martha Berg, Henry Chapman, Jiayun Fang, Samantha Fortuna, Harrison Glicklich, Michael Harmon, Eric Hertz, Amanda Huang, Jacob Kaufman, James Kiselik, William Krinsman, Chanthia Ma, Henry Meng, Asher Sendyk, Margaret Tang, Joseph Wang, Anxin Zhu.  Each of these students has received a certificate commending them on their accomplishment. More than 1.5 million students in nearly 22,000 U.S. high schools entered the program …

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Millburn Cellist to Perform with Bravura Philharmonic

MHS junior will be a featured soloist at the orchestra's Family Concert in March.

Sunny Sung-Eun Chang, a 17-year-old cellist from Millburn, is one of the featured soloists performing with the award-winning Bravura Philharmonic Orchestra in Plainsboro in March. The Philharmonic,  led by music director and conductor Chiu-Tze Lin, on will perform a family concert titled “Music Masters from East to West – Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Ma SiCong,”  on Sunday, March 4, 7 pm at the Princeton Alliance Church there. The concert features symphonic works from the legendary Chinese composer, Ma SiCong and the master of classical music, Beethoven. Sunny Sung-Eun Chang, along with pianist Kevin Jang and violinist Constance Kaita, will perform the Beethoven Triple Concerto. This Concerto is unique and presents a trio of piano…

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MHS Musings

MHS Musings: Winter Concert Features MHS Bands

This year's winter band concert showcased the hard work of MHS' concert bands and wind ensemble.

It's been a busy year for the Millburn High School bands. They've had a full season of playing at Millers varsity football games, three accelerated recitals (with three more to go this year) and have sent dozens of students to Region I honor bands, multiple students to All-State Ensembles, a student to the All-Eastern Ensembles, and even one to the Grammy Awards. Among all of this, the bands have been rehearsing for their first concert of the year and have spent months learning, playing, fine-tuning, and perfecting their music. The MHS bands presented their winter concert on Wednesday night to a large crowd in the auditorium. The bands are under the direction of the school's two band directors: Mindy Scheierman and Matthew Spatz. The …

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MHS Musings

MHS Musings: Students Conquer Midterm Exams

High school students have recently been preoccupied with midterms, which finished earlier this morning.

This morning (and 2:15 p.m. for others) marked freedom for the students at Millburn High School. It was the end of midterm week, a “week” (though actually 14 days) filled with cramming, memorizing, conceptualizing, and frustration. But at the end of it all, students will look back with success, accomplishment and relief. At MHS all courses—from chemistry to literature, statistics to art history—give end-of-semester midterm exams at the end of January. The exam grades count as 20 percent of the semester grade. It amounts to 10 percent of a student’s final grade, so midterms are really nothing to joke about. The exams last 90 minutes in length, more than twice the length of a normal class period. Teachers are not restricted to a specific …

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MHS Musings

MHS Musings: Winter Concert Showcases Talent

The Millburn High School choruses and orchestras received a standing ovation for their performance on Thursday night.

The choral and orchestral ensembles from Millburn High School showcased their hard work and talent at the annual Winter Concert on Thursday night. The concert was very well-received by a packed crowd and was the recipient of riveting applause and a standing ovation. This performance, under the direction of Karen Conrad (orchestras) and Rodrigo Vega (choruses), was Vega's first concert as director of choruses at Millburn High School. He is a recent graduate of the renowned Westminster Choir College and comes from directing a high school choir program in Virginia. The night opened with the Cantica Nova, Millburn's freshman chorus, who rehearse daily with Vega. They opened with a fun gospel tune, "Michael Row That Gospel Boat," and continued …

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MHS Musings

MHS Musings: Into the Woods

The Millburn High School Limelight Players go “Into the Woods” in their annual fall musical.

We all remember the classic fairy-tale stories of Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel. But what would happen if their stories were combined? "Into the Woods," this year's Millburn High School fall musical, unites these stories with the award-winning music of Stephen Sondheim to create an engaging and exciting musical production. The Millburn High School Limelight Players will present this acclaimed musical on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in the MHS auditorium. Tickets are $10 if you call 973-564-7130, extension 455, in advance, and they are $12 at the door. Seats are reserved, so call in with your order. In the musical, the four fairy tales are tied together with an original story involving a baker …

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MHS Musings

MHS Musings: Key Club Holds Annual Talent Show

The MHS Key Club raises money for UNICEF at an entertaining night of music and dance.

The Millburn High School Key Club held their annual talent show Friday, showcasing the school's talent at this unique New York-themed competition. Following last year's successful "Millstock" show, senior Martha Meguerian took the helm as the show's coordinator and director, assisted by juniors Erin Hernon and Julia Silverstein. This year's talent show, titled "New York, New York," raised money for UNICEF's "Operation Uruguay." All proceeds earned through admissions and concessions will "reduce social vulnerability factors for adolescents under the most critical situations" in Uruguay, according to Key Club. The talent at the show was very unique, diverse and entertaining, featuring multiple dance ensembles, bands, vocal numbers and piano …

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MHS Musings: High School Online

Edline and PowerSchool are two online tools familiar to MHS students and parents.

Following the sound of the bell at the end of the school day, most students around the nation can be seen packing up their books and departing the school and walk away from any access to their classes, teachers and grades. It's not the case at Millburn High School thanks to the innovations of Edline, school emails and PowerSchool. Edline is the online information center for the entire school district, but it is especially critical for high school and middle school students. Each individual class has an Edline page managed by the classroom teacher. These pages are updated daily for students to see the day's homework assignments, to download PDF files of handouts and worksheets, to find links and webquests related to the class content and to…

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MHS Musings

MHS Musings: Back to School

Another year of classes starts at the high school.

The first day of my sophomore year at Millburn High School was very different from the first day last September when I entered high school as a freshman. For one, the issue of hazing and bullying seems to be almost, if not completely, nonexistent. Because of the hugely successful Senior Ambassador Program, freshmen flawlessly found their way to their classes and have already become acclimated to their teachers, peers and surroundings. In addition, now as sophomores (and apparently too old for regular class orientation on the first day), classes kicked off right away. Teachers began diving into this year's course material and some even assigned homework! Though I'm convinced my classes will be once again very difficult, I know the classes I…

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