Cherry Hill, NJ – Several hundred people attended the annual “SIGHTS AND SOUNDS” Festival this weekend at St. Thomas Greek Orthodox Church. This festival featured many visual and performing arts displays, including photography, painting, sculpting, cake decoration, dance, instrument recitals, the group plays, and vocal talent. Many of our youth from the 13 Greek Orthodox parishes of the Delaware Valley participated in this annual event.
St. Thomas Greek Orthodox Church hosted the original event that started 38 years ago, making it arguably the “longest-running arts and entertaining affair for this Greek community.
If you are a painter, sculptor, woodworker, or photographer, or there’s some other part of the art world you love, this is the place to be. Every year a different parish host the arts festival. The annual event showcases an array of skilled young Greek-American artists in a friendly competition.
This two-day affair included judging the visual arts on Thursday night and live performances on Saturday in the church gym and adjacent classrooms of the Danielle Kousoulis Center of St Thomas.
Group Chorus, Theatre, and folk dancing were the highlighted events for which everyone packed the gym. While upstairs, in the AHEPA room, musical duets, choral singing, and solo instruments were performed throughout the day.
Panels of judges sat with pen and paper at each event, providing scoring that was accumulated for each church in various categories. The final announcements were made about all the winners in each category, and overall team church winners were announced. The Greek Orthodox Metropolis of New Jersey hosts the annual event.