Faculty Unscripted: Chris Celella
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Chris Celella chairs the Fine Arts Department and teaches studio music and drama.
What are your primary roles at MSA?
Music and Drama Teacher
Fine Arts Department Chair
What made you decide to live and work on the Hill?
I love the mission…it is PERFECTLY aligned with experiences in performing arts education. The autonomy to create coursework that changes over time enhances the ability to LIVE the mission.
I was free to concentrate solely on the student experience in performing arts. The curriculum emerged as I slowly built programming and professional experience in engaging students in the process of creating THEIR music and THEIR theater productions. Students thrive when they truly have a stake in their art, when they take real risks, when they say true things on stage and off, and when they are confident in their failures knowing that it is what they do next that defines who they are.
Most memorable teaching, coaching, or student-life experience?
Spring Honors every April: Students shining on stage with the best audience in the world, our MSA community. Students cheering for one another…so many memories…I look forward to many more!
If you were not an educator, what would you be?
A cook/chef.
A contractor/builder.
Favorite aspect of working at a boarding school?
Students who live where they study in high school are being prepared for many aspects of life that can’t be learned outside of the boarding environment. It allows educators to engage in student learning outside of the classroom…a special aspect of being an educator, mentor, coach, driver, and facilitator is that there is never a lack of variety in your day.
Most memorable lesson learned from students at MSA?
Notes to self:
Don’t take yourself so seriously that you disrupt other’s ability to learn or grow from experiences that you curate.
Don’t be so tied to skills development that you forget to expand the love and appreciation of the art form.
All students are creational forces that simply need to find their medium in which they feel comfortable producing/creating/building.
Favorite place to go or thing to do on MSA’s 1,600-acre campus?
I see the Chapel Theater in Old Main as the central venue to see students learning, growing, developing, performing, creating, collaborating, and…SHINING!
So many students have graced the Chapel Theater stage. Whether telling stories through a drama production or performing music, the Chapel Theater is where my life’s work of engaging students in the creative process comes to fruition most.
I build the sets and stages with students so that they can learn every aspect of production. So many places have been portrayed here. So many songs have been sung. More to come! A true celebration of life space!
Movie you have watched the most times in your life?
Stop Making Sense
Dream trip?
Anywhere….to eat things I haven’t eaten and to appreciate the simple beauty of other people and their places and their art and their social norms.
Pets?
2 Dogs: Linus and Henry
1 Cat: Lola
We keep a fresh water aquarium as well.
What did you want to do when you grew up (when you were in high school)?
Opera/Classical Concert Singer
Music Teacher
