From left, Greenville Excessive Faculty 2007 graduate Danielle VanTuinen, former Greenville Public Colleges superintendent Tom Pridgeon (1990-1998) and his spouse, Sharron Pridgeon, smile upon being inducted within the Greenville Performing Arts Corridor of Fame Class of 2023 on Saturday. — DN Picture | Cory Smith
GREENVILLE — With former college students and school having made important contributions to the world of the performing arts, every year a choose group of people is inducted into the Greenville Public Colleges Performing Arts Corridor of Fame.
The late Vivian Martin, who starred in silent movies and broadway exhibits within the early Twentieth century, was inducted into the Greenville Performing Arts Corridor of Fame Class of 2023 on Saturday. — Submitted photograph | Flat River Historic Society and Museum
The Performing Arts Corridor of Fame consists of alumni, lecturers, directors and neighborhood members which have made a big contribution to the college district’s Performing Arts program or have had a profession of notable accomplishment in performing arts.
This 12 months, the Performing Arts Corridor of Fame Committee chosen 4 people who had been honored previous to and through Saturday night’s Vacation Collage Live performance, held on the Performing Arts Middle at Greenville Excessive Faculty.
This 12 months’s class noticed the induction of 2007 GHS graduate Danielle VanTuinen, former superintendent Thomas Pridgeon and his spouse, Sharron Pridgeon, and early Twentieth-century silent-movie and broadway star, Vivian Martin.
Danielle VanTuinen
Whereas a pupil at GHS, VanTuinen was concerned within the band, choir and theater packages. Annually she continued to excel musically, which gave her the bottom that she wanted to seek out her ardour in music.
VanTuinen is at present a performer, educator and entrepreneur primarily based in Gainesville, Florida, the place she works as assistant professor of tuba and euphonium and director of the College of Florida Brass Band on the College of Florida.
VanTuinen earned a health care provider of musical arts diploma in music efficiency and grasp of music diploma in music efficiency from Arizona State College, and a bachelor of music diploma in music efficiency from Central Michigan College.
On Friday, VanTuinen frolicked with band college students sharing her experience and experiences with the scholars, and through Saturday’s Vacation Collage Live performance, she joined the scholars on stage.
“I really feel humbled and intensely honored. I by no means in 1,000,000 years would have thought my title would present up on something like this,” VanTuinen instructed the Day by day Information. “Once I walked by means of the college yesterday, I used to be blown away by all of the modifications. As I carry out with the scholars tonight, I believe numerous nostalgia goes to return again. I keep in mind being a pupil, who was exhausted, after the entire collage expertise. So I’m excited that I get to sit down in with them and share in that.”
Corridor of Fame Committee member and retired GHS band and orchestra director Susan Gould mentioned VanTuinen’s contributions to the world of music transcend easy instruction and efficiency.
“I met Danielle within the fall of 2003 and her musical aptitude was obvious instantly,” Gould mentioned. “I’ve too many reminiscences of her to checklist right here, however watching her journey has been a joy-filled journey and I’m grateful I might be a small a part of it. She is an impressive instructor, musician and most significantly, a tremendous human being.”
Previous to her present appointment, VanTuinen was a lecturer of music at Plymouth State College the place she taught low brass strategies, chamber music and utilized classes. She additionally labored as low brass school on the Portland Conservatory of Music, adjunct workers for the marching band on the College of New Hampshire, private-lesson teacher all through northern New England and low brass teacher for the Phoenix Youth Symphony.
She has been invited to adjudicate at quite a lot of festivals, together with the New Hampshire MEA Solo & Ensemble Competitors, the Paul I. Willwerth Brass Competitions, the Worldwide Ladies’s Brass Younger Artist Competitors, and the AETYB Younger Artist Competitors in Madrid, Spain.
As a co-founder of the internationally acclaimed Moreau | VanTuinen Duo she has been invited to carry out on the Spanish Affiliation of Tubas and Euphoniums, Northern Arizona College, Ithaca School, the Miraphone Academy of the Southwest, america Pershing’s Personal Military Band Tuba-Euphonium Workshop and the Worldwide Ladies’s Brass Convention.
Her dedication to increasing low brass repertoire has resulted in over 15 compositions by composers similar to Steven Snowden, James Grant, Shaun Tilburg, and Etienne Crausaz.
Tom Pridgeon
Tom grew up within the metropolis of Studying and attended Adrian School, incomes a bachelor’s diploma in elementary training the place he was the esteemed fraternity tune chief.
He continued his instructional journey by incomes a grasp’s diploma in instructional management from Jap Michigan College and an EDS diploma in instructional management from Michigan State College. Tom and his spouse Sharron have two sons, Jeffrey and Andrew, and 6 grandchildren.
Whereas working because the superintendent in Greenville from 1990 to 1998, Tom met with former music instructional workers, listening and planning for the potential for a brand new performing arts heart. He took that imaginative and prescient ahead and led the college district in a profitable bond marketing campaign that enabled the college district to construct the present performing arts heart.
Corridor of Fame Committee member and retired choir director Joel Van Houten, who taught at the highschool throughout Pridgeon’s tenure, mentioned his management was key in seeing the Performing Arts Middle come to fruition.
“When Tom first got here on board, a number of members of the music workers got here collectively and we instructed him, we actually need an auditorium,” he mentioned. “He actually listened, he actually investigated and took that on. Underneath his management, we had been capable of get that completed. It was a dream come true for the music workers at that time.
“The auditorium was constructed for the programming that was already occurring. It was making do, however the auditorium offered an area to embody and showcase all of that, permitting us to raise our packages much more.”
Van Houten mentioned this “important contribution” has allowed the performing arts division to have a related and applicable venue to carry out and showcase the abilities of scholars for greater than 20 years.
Upon being inducted into the Corridor of Fame, Tom couldn’t consider it.
“I instructed Joel, I don’t even play an instrument,” he mentioned with amusing. “I grew up in a college district with no choir, no band — I didn’t expertise the superb arts. However because of this, I believe that void made me all of the extra passionate for the superb arts.
“As we speak, I simply really feel a fantastic sense of satisfaction,” he continued. “We had a fantastic group of individuals come along with a imaginative and prescient. It wasn’t simply concerning the performing arts heart, our strategic plan touched each a part of each faculty.”
Tom added that when plans had been conceived for the Performing Arts Middle, the college district didn’t maintain again.
“We knew the auditorium can be a distinction maker and we didn’t skimp on it,” he mentioned. “We employed good architects they usually employed nice acoustical consultants out of the College of Purdue. John Varineau of the Grand Rapids Symphony as soon as mentioned the acoustics right here in our performing arts heart is second solely to the Devos Efficiency Corridor.”
Tom was additionally acknowledged for his contributions to the district by being awarded the college district’s high award, the Faculty Bell Award, in 1998.
Sharron Pridgeon
Sharron Pridgeon has been an avid supporter of the performing arts division in Greenville for a few years.
She has been a passionate patron and helped with many productions, working backstage within the make-up division as a make-up artist.
“Sharron was concerned within the theatre program, serving to within the theater division for a lot of, a few years,” Van Houten mentioned. “She was all the time supportive of the performing arts packages right here in Greenville.”
Sharon is a graduate of Studying Excessive Faculty and attended Olivet School incomes a bachelor of arts diploma in 1992.
After finishing a category in theatre make-up on the College of Wisconsin, Manitowac, she offered make-up companies for the “The Masquers,” a neighborhood theater group in Manitowac, Wisconsin for 4 years. She additionally offered make-up companies in Olivet for the Olivet Group Colleges in addition to serving the Greenville Public Colleges Theater Division from 1998 to 2000.
She has treasured her experiences, which have allowed her to fulfill and work together with wonderfully-talented people within the performing arts space.
Upon being inducted within the Corridor of Fame, Sharron instructed the Day by day Information she was past humbled in receiving the popularity.
“It’s overwhelming, it truly is,” she mentioned. “I’m simply so grateful for the popularity. I really feel I performed solely a small, small half in issues, I actually did, however I really like being again right here and seeing all of those mates once more.”
Vivian Martin
Vivian Martin was born in Sparta in 1891, however moved to Greenville the place she grew up on Benton Avenue. Her dad and mom had been Charles H. Martin and Grace Gibbs.
The late Vivian Martin, who starred in silent movies and broadway exhibits within the early Twentieth century, is pictured on the duvet of a Transferring Image Tales weekly journal in 1918. The previous Greenville Excessive Faculty pupil was inducted into the Greenville Performing Arts Corridor of Fame Class of 2023 on Saturday. — Submitted photograph | Flat River Historic Society and Museum
By the point she was 10 years outdated, she was acting on stage on the Detroit Opera Home.
Vivian made her New York stage debut in Cyrano de Bergerac that very same 12 months. She made her Broadway debut on the age of 12 as “Little Lord Fauntleroy.” After tenth grade, she left Greenville to tour the nation as “Peter Pan.”
In keeping with Corridor of Fame Committee member and retired center and highschool band director Keith Hudson, a good portion of the neighborhood at the moment made an effort to see the younger actress carry out.
“In 1908, 225 individuals in Greenville chartered a practice to see her as Peter Pan in Grand Rapids,” Hudson mentioned. “How cool is that? After that, she toured nationally in stage performs all around the nation.”
After ending that nationwide tour, Martin traveled the nation in plenty of stage performs, till 1914, when she starred in her first movie, “The Wishing Ring.”
In keeping with Hudson, that is her solely movie that survived and the Flat River Historic Museum has a duplicate on DVD.
“She was an enormous hit,” he mentioned. “She was thought of to be a rival to Mary Pickford, who remains to be thought of to be the all-time hottest actress ever. Vivian would go on to headline for 41 whole movies.”
Hudson mentioned as soon as “The Wishing Ring” was rediscovered just a few years in the past, movie critics praised the movie and its director, Maurice Turnair, claiming the movie to be the excessive level of American cinema as much as that point. One critic thought it might have simply been made a decade later.
Many of those films had been offered on the Silver Theater in Greenville.
Martin left the movie business in 1921, however continued to carry out on Broadway for plenty of years. She died in New York Metropolis in 1987 at age 93.
Her obituary within the New York Occasions famous her philanthropy and affiliation with the Skilled Youngsters’s Faculty in New York. She contributed to the lives of younger performers as each a buddy and benefactress.
