APAB
Acalanes Performing Arts Boosters
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OUR MISSION
The mission of the Acalanes Performing Arts Boosters (APAB) is to promote and advocate for high quality performing arts education for the students of Acalanes High School. APAB supports the students and Directors of the Choral, Drama and Instrumental Music departments in their extracurricular work and works to elevate the performing arts within the campus culture and wider community.
INSTRUMENTAL
MUSIC
CLASS OF 2026 · SENIOR FAREWELL
The House Lights Stay On For You
A farewell to the seniors of Acalanes Performing Arts
There is a moment — every performer knows it — right before everything begins. The lights drop. The room quiets. And in that breath between silence and sound, between stillness and story, something extraordinary becomes possible.
You have lived in that moment, over and over, for four years. And now you’re standing in it again. Only this time, it’s the real thing.
“The curtain doesn’t close on what you’ve built here — it just rises somewhere new.”
This year alone, you brought the roaring ambition of Chicago to life on the PAC stage, conjuring Roxie Hart’s dreams and Velma Kelly’s nerve with every performance. You ran through the screwball chaos of On the Razzle in the fall, and turned DramaDonsemble short plays into something intimate and alive. Under Ed Meehan’s direction, you didn’t just act — you listened, you played, you trusted each other.
In choir, you sang across Lafayette and beyond — at the Art & Wine Festival, beneath the arched ceiling of St. Mary’s Chapel, at the Oakland LDS Temple’s Celebration of Christmas, and at the Folsom Jazz Festival. Under Meredith Hawkins, you found your voice, and then you used it to lift others. That’s not a small thing.
In the bands and ensembles, you opened October with the Pops Concert and closed the year with the Collage Concert — bookends to a season of jazz nights, winter showcases, and spring performances that filled the PAC from pit to rafters. In the stands on Friday nights, you were the pep band, the heartbeat of every home game, keeping the energy alive long after the fourth quarter wore everyone else down. And when it came time to be judged, you were more than ready: Unanimous Superior ratings at both the CMEA competition and the Homestead Orchestra Festival — the highest mark possible, earned twice over, with every judge in agreement. Under Edwin Cordoba’s leadership you turned sheet music into shared memory, and you have the hardware to prove it.
Drama
From On the Razzle to Chicago, you told stories that made the PAC feel necessary. The DramaDons are better for every role you played — on stage and off.
choir
You sang through cathedrals, plazas, and concert halls. Under Ms. Hawkins, you became not just singers but a community that genuinely listens.
instrumental
🏆 CMEA Unanimous Superior. Homestead Unanimous Superior.
Concerts, pep band, and two unanimous Superior ratings at CMEA and the Homestead Orchestra Festival. You made music everywhere — and made it count when it mattered most.
What you’ve learned here — how to show up when it’s hard, how to hold a note when your nerves are loud, how to be brave and vulnerable, how to find the truth in a character who isn’t you, how to be still so someone else can shine — these aren’t high school skills. They’re life ones.
The underclassmen who watched you this year? They were taking notes. The directors who pushed you? They’re proud in ways they may not have fully said. And this community — the one that filled those seats from October through May — they carry your performances with them.
Go well, Class of 2026. The stage is yours, whatever shape it takes next.
With gratitude and no small amount of pride —
Acalanes Performing Arts Boosters
Choir · Drama · Instrumental Music · 2025–2026