Arts

Discover your voice. Explore your ideas.

We believe creativity is a way of understanding the world. Through visual art, music, and performing arts, students learn to imagine possibilities, ask meaningful questions, and bring their ideas to life. From their first days in Lower School, students build skills, confidence, and courage to create. In Middle School, every student participates in a performing ensemble while continuing to explore and develop their artistic talents. By Upper School, students deepen existing passions and express themselves in their favorite artistic disciplines.

Nurturing creative thinkers is essential as students face a future filled with novel problems without pre-existing parameters. The creative process is a compass that helps guide our thinking, rather than a map that defines each step.
Cameron Jack, Director of the Visual, Performing, and Musical Arts Department

Where creativity grows.

Every student’s creative journey is unique. Whether discovering a passion for painting, performance, music, or design, students are supported by teachers who encourage exploration, collaboration, and creative expression. Our students learn by doing—developing their skills while finding their artistic voice.

The arts journey at OES.

Creativity begins early and grows throughout a student’s experience. In Lower School, students explore the arts through hands-on learning with dedicated art and music specialists. In Middle School, every student participates in band, choir, art, and theater. In Upper School, students deepen their passions through advanced courses, performances, exhibitions, and portfolio development. At every stage, students are encouraged to ask questions, collaborate, and use creativity as a tool for expression and problem-solving.

OES Arts at a Glance

decorative line

100%

of Middle School students participate in music and theater.

Upper School Arts Courses

25

4

Performance venues on campus.

Students accepted to the 2026 All-State Music Conference

15 150+

Students Participate in 3 Upper School Plays Each Year

Arts-related college scholarships earned by OES students

$2 Million

5

Dedicated Lower School art and music specialists

Dedicated visual arts spaces across divisions

7

After School Arts

Arts in Extension (After School) gives Lower School students a chance to keep creating and exploring after the school day ends. As part of OES’s nurturing after-school care program, students can dive into activities like art and music, take private lessons in instruments such as guitar, violin, piano, voice, or flute, and pursue creative projects alongside time for free play and recreation. With caring instructors and plenty of room to follow their interests, Extension helps students build creativity, independence, and confidence beyond the classroom.

Create: Make art, experiment with materials, and let your imagination lead.
Make Music: Explore instruments, improve your skills through private lessons, sing, and discover a love of music.
Have Fun: Play, explore, and follow your interests with friends.

Artists Beyond OES

OES students have continued their creative journeys at leading colleges, conservatories, and art schools, including:

American Musical and Dramatic Academy
Art Center College of Design
Art Institute of Chicago
Bard College
Bennington College
California College of the Arts
College for Creative Studies
Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester
Fashion Institute of Technology
Minneapolis College of Art and Design
Otis College of Art and Design
Parsons School of Design
Pratt Institute
Rhode Island School of Design
Savannah College of Art and Design
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts

Visual, Performing & Musical Arts News

Visual Arts

A young person with dark curly hair, wearing a tan hoodie and black pants, is focused on shaping clay on a pottery wheel in the foreground, while a shelf filled with various ceramic pots and vases is visible in the background.

Performing Arts

A young girl with braided hair and a colorful cap rests her chin on her hand, looking thoughtfully towards the left, against a backdrop of orange-hued cartoon clouds.

Musical Arts

A young boy in a white shirt plays the violin in the foreground, with a blurred background of what appears to be a church or concert hall.