'A summer evening filled with stars'

Woodland students complete another mural

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“A Summer Evening Filled With Stars,” the latest mural drawn by Woodland Middle School art students, will be publicly unveiled on Nov. 16 at the Tilles Center in Brookville, during a performance by the Nassau Pops Symphony Orchestra.

The 4 by 8 foot mural depicts Louis Panacciulli, who co-founded the Nassau Pops in 1984, conducting an orchestra in a park, under a night sky.

Twice per year, Woodland students, under the direction of art teacher John Healy, paint a mural depicting prominent locations or groups in Nassau County that have a Woodland connection. Recent student murals focused on the American Theater Dance Workshop in New Hyde Park, where student Brooke Leventhal is a dancer, and the Eglevsky Ballet Studio in Bethpage, where student Leah Von Ohlen trains.

Before embarking on a new project, Healy asks his students for his ideas. It was seventh-grader Sean Kennedy who volunteered this time, informing Healy that his mother, Lougene Kennedy, is the first-chair cellist for Nassau Pops.

The orchestra provided Healy with a photograph of a recent performance at the Westbury Gardens, and the students got to work. On Nov. 7, the students showed off the finished product inside their Woodland classroom, inviting Panacciulli and Kennedy to see it for the first time. “That’s one of my favorite photos,” said Panacciulli, who is also the band director for Valley Stream’s District 13 and Nassau Community College. “To see it in oil is really something.”

Kennedy, a 1985 East Meadow High School graduate who has been in the orchestra since its inception, said the mural carries extra meaning for her because of her son’s involvement. “It impressed me because kids don’t always express interest in that kind of thing,” she said. “For him to promote it, it means it’s something he’s proud of.”

A mix of sixth, seventh and eighth graders painted the mural, and Kennedy can be seen in the front row. Some 25 students were inside the classroom on Nov. 7 to welcome Panacciulli.

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