Minuteman students offer designs
UPDATED, Jan. 23: Seven local a cappella singing groups will assemble for a tribute and benefit concert, “A CATpella Festival to Belt Out Cancer,” at 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 24, in the Lowe Auditorium, Arlington High School, to remember the beautiful spirit of Catherine Malatesta.
The event benefit the Catherine J. Malatesta Foundation and the Sarcoma Foundation of America. In 2015, Catherine, 16, died from Epithelioid Sarcoma, a rare form of cancer after a seven-month battle.
Headlining the program is Sound Off, one of New England’s top-ranked coed vocal ensembles. The group was the season three champions of WGBH’s “Sing that Thing” amateur singing competition.
Other featured acts are the Common Tones of Boston College, Amherst College Zumbyes, Tufts University Jackson Jills, the Tufts University Beezebubs, Arlington High School’s Madrigal Singers and Winchester High School’s The Octets. The master of ceremonies is Lindsey Mills, an Arlington native and anchor/reporter at News Center Maine in Portland.
Tickets are $20 per person and are available online >>
The concert is sponsored by Epizyme, the Sanborn Foundation, Prime Motor Group, Law Enforcement Dimensions, W. L. French Excavating Corp., LaRosa Development, McDonald Contracting and Belmont Orthodontics.
Catherine J. Malatesta
Jennifer Goodwin, trustee of the Catherine J. Malatesta Foundation, board member of the Sarcoma Foundation and mother of Catherine Malatesta, says her family is thrilled by the budding success of the foundation.
The mission of the foundation is to save the lives of cancer patients, with an emphasis on children, and to inspire hope and lend support to the families caring for and the heroes and warriors living with and surviving cancer. She says this will be accomplished by funding scientific research, raising awareness through fund-raising and providing financial assistance to organizations dedicated to early detection, finding a cure and optimizing the patient care and family experience during and after their cancer journey.
“Through this foundation, we have been able to enact change and target support to specific areas of cancer research that are currently woefully underfunded,” she said in a news release. “We provide assistance to cancer patients and their families during and after their cancer journeys by supporting organizations that made a difference in the lives of Catherine and our family during her cancer treatment and after her tragic death.”
Brandi Felser, executive director of the Sarcoma Foundation of America, said the foundation is pleased to be a partner in this effort. Money raised through the event “supports much-needed innovative sarcoma research through the Catherine Malatesta Memorial Research Award,” she said. “The Catherine Malatesta Memorial Research Award is an important catalyst to finding new and more effective treatments, and ultimately a cure, for sarcoma patients. We are honored to once again join with Catherine’s family and community to celebrate her life and to work together to find an end to this terrible disease.”
Catherine died a month before she was to enter her senior year at AHS. She was an honors student who had been voted Student Council president and field hockey captain. Catherine rowed Varsity Crew. However, the place where she felt most at home was on stage.
From an early age, she sang in choruses, at church, her elementary school, and in local musicals. By middle school, she advanced to the select chorus, where she loved the challenge of the complex pieces and landed the leads in the middle school plays.
In high school she participated in the Gilbert & Sullivan Club plays and earned a coveted spot in the Madrigal Singers. Catherine loved the feeling of camaraderie and community that singing in a group provided. Her last concert was May 2, 2015, during chemotherapy treatment.
For more information about the benefit concert, please visit www.catherinemalatesta.com/a-catpella-festival or call 781-710-7823.
How Minuteman helps out again
Minuteman High School 11th-grade students in the design and visual communications program created the printed and digital materials for a CATpella. From left are students Asher Pearlmutter-Bearson of Arlington, Angelina Amico of Stow, Ariana Calder of Lancaster, Jillian Bearden of Arlington, and Jeffrey Newton of Lanca.For the fourth consecutive year, students in the Design and Visual Communications program at Minuteman High School in Lexington have created publicity materials for an a cappella event that will honor an Arlington teenager who lost her life to sarcoma and raise awareness and money to fight this rare form of cancer.
Minuteman juniors designed and printed postcards, tickets, sandwich board signs, and the event program for the A CATpella Festival to Belt Out Cancer on Friday, January 24, 2019, at 7:00 p.m. at Arlington High School.
The occasion honors Catherine “Cat” Malatesta (shown above), a 16-year-old who attended Arlington High School and lost her battle with sarcoma in 2015, less than a year after being diagnosed with the disease. All proceeds will benefit the Sarcoma Foundation of America (SFA).Students in Minuteman High School’s Design and Visual Communications major created this event program for a CAT pella, a music festival in memory of an Arlington teenager who died of sarcoma, a rare form of cancer. The students also designed post cards, tickets, social media graphics, and a sandwich board that will be posted outside the event.
“The A CATpella event provides students the opportunity to work directly with a client and design materials that visually communicate a specific message,” said Maria Galante, a design and visual communications instructor at Minuteman. “The entire experience fosters teamwork that is similar to working in a design agency.”
Angelina Amico, a junior from Stow, shared how the project has been valuable to her.
“Designing for aCATpella challenged my fellow classmates and I to work better together as a team,” Amico said. “I am proud of all the effort that was put into such an amazing project. The final product captures the memory honoring the young woman who inspired this event.”
“The beautiful design and print work that the Minuteman students produce continues to elevate the look and feel of the a CATpella Festival to Belt Out Cancer,” said Jennifer Goodwin, Catherine’s mother, who is the event organizer. “The creativity and professionalism of the students is an absolute dream. They listen, they create and the end product not only is a very effective marketing tool for the event but also a window into the creative mind of a teenager working to support Catherine’s memory and this fantastic cause. We continue to be so grateful for this four-year partnership.”
This news announcement was published Monday, Jan. 13, 2020, and updated Jan. 23.
