About

Quadratum intends to produce intelligent, self-reliant young people through rigorous musical doings, direct-impact service projects, and demanding expeditions. These offerings are available to elementary through high school students. Through these fundamental programs, we reëstablish experience as education, honor and stretch the capacities of able young people; and encourage rhetorical skills that contribute to their personal analytical abilities and generate lively dialogue amidst their peers. Ultimately, our members develop balance and strength both physically and intellectually.

Musically, we thoroughly cover traditional Ghanaian Drumming and Singing, and we are privileged to percuss on authentic drums carved in Ghana from native wood and skins. We also teach South Indian (Carnatic) Solkattu and both accompanied and unaccompanied choral musics ranging from 16th century polyphony to newly-composed works, including those by Quadratum director Brian Parks. Students learn the grammars and syntax of music notation such that they can competently write basic musical sentences. We play the drums frequently in educational and festival settings. And the Quadratum choral assemblage, Schola Quadratum, sings many times a year in both liturgical and concert settings. Philosophically, we teach that music goes far beyond its performed realization. We strive to understand that musical events – pitches that last an amount of time – are comprehensible…at least to a point. We’d like to approach that point.

Our students work monthly at intense service sites such as the Men’s and Women’s Extensions in Marietta ; Murphy-Harpst Children’s Center in Cedartown; and LifeLine Animal Project in Tucker (all towns in Georgia). They make meals for scores of people at a time, talk and dine with the residents and young people they serve, and do whatever tasks are asked of them at these service sites.

Our students take strenuous hikes on the regular, and once a year they go on a ski trip. This is no doubt one of the most beloved annual events in Quadratum’s calendar. In July 2026, they will jet to England for a weeklong Choral Residency at Exeter Cathedral, where they will enact daily Evensong and a Choral Eucharist, all while living collaboratively, cooking for each other, and jumping off rocks into the ocean (the Brits call it Coasteering).

To recommend a young person who enjoys such doings or for any other inquiries, write us at our email address: directors@quadratum.online.         

Rehearsal, Service, and Expedition Schedule 

  • Weekly Rehearsals take place on Wednesdays. Students of any age may arrive as early as 3:00 p.m. to do homework, study together, play/garden in the yard, practice music with or without staff/peer assistance, cook dinner together, or simply relax. Rehearsal proper for students in grades 3rd through 5th  begins at 4:30 p.m. At 6:00 p.m., groups from both age bands eat dinner together (that the students themselves have prepared). The younger group is dismissed, and the rehearsal for grades 6th through 12th begins at 6:30 p.m., with dismissal at 8:30 p.m. 

  • Service opportunities are made available roughly once a month. We currently volunteer with the Men’s and Women’s Extensions (making and serving dinners on site); LifeLine, a no-kill animal shelter in Atlanta; and Murphy-Harpst Children’s Home, where we assist with the physical plant as well as work directly with residents, primarily by teaching Ghanaian drum-dances and songs. 

  • Choral Residency at Exeter Cathedral in Devon, England. This unique, once-a-lifetime tour will feature 11 nights in the United Kingdom, with 7 days of comprehensive musical duties at the cathedral including nightly Evensong and a Sunday sung Eucharist, where we will make the English premiere of the Dubois Requiem Mass, Ebrecht edition. The dates are July 10th-July 22nd, 2026. 

  • Summer Camps abound! We have choral and drumming camps scheduled throughout June and early July 2026. They will take place at The Westminster Schools, St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church, and through Marietta City Schools. Click here for all the particulars and to register.  

  • To audition with an eye on eventual enrollment, click here.

Tuition (2026-27 rates)

The Year’s Classes (7th-12th grade): $1800  ($1600 early enrollment rate by May 18th, 2026)

The Year’s Classes (7th-12th grade) plus Snowshoe Ski Trip (December 28th-January 1st): $3500 ($3000 early enrollment rate by May 18th, 2026)

Classes by Semester (3rd-6th grade): $600

Camp rates vary from $385 - $550 for weeklong full-day camps, and $235 for half-day options.

All above may be registered for by clicking here:

Write us at directors@quadratum.online to find out more.

 

Our directors’ decades of pedagogical research and commitment imbue every conversant, instructive, and ludic moment. Whether demystifying musical grammars and syntax (preposterously referred to as “Music Theory” for some unjustifiable reason), considering questions and answers concerning musics' ancient and modern purposes, showing a novice how to hold and play the gankogui bell,  devising a plan for timing courses in meal preparation, or helping a student ski down a mountain for the first time, Brian and Catherine never take the lesson or the adventure for granted. True comprehension may reveal itself at any time. The same is true though for total ambiguity, an equally instructive state. The sheer joy of figuring things out undergirds their teaching; the Quadratum students in turn live out that joy in all their various doings. Read more about Brian Parks and Catherine Moulton below. 

Brian Parks is a Fellow of the American Guild of Organists and currently believed to be the only person alive who can play the Bach masterwork organ fugues (BWVs 537, 542, 543, 544, 552, 582, &c.) as well as the master drum parts for enshrined Ghanaian drum-dances gahu, agbekor (slow and fast), sikyi, and kundum (unverified claim). Favorite venues where he has presented harpsichord, organ, and composition concerts include: Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, the Nordrhein-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Künste, Diakonie Düsseldorf, Dreischeibenhaus, the Basilica of the Apostles (Köln), Sankt Peter Kunstation (Köln), the American Church in Paris, Les Instants Chavirés, Exeter Cathedral, the wulf. (Los Angeles), First Scots Presbyterian Church (Charleston), The Church in the Wilderness (Killingworth) and Higganum Congregational Church. He has given lectures on algorithmic composition, experimental sacred musicking, and the role of the partner in early lactation among other topics at sites that include IRCAM, the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists, Oxford University (Ripon College Cuddesdon), the Conservatoire de Lille, Bowdoin College, Kennesaw State University, and the La Leche League Conference of Connecticut. He is most fortunate to have taken lessons with compassionate, brilliant, and humble pedagogues. Among others, he studied composition with Tom Johnson, Ron Kuivila, Anthony Braxton, and Alvin Lucier; organ with Ronald Ebrecht; Ghanaian drumming with Abraham Adzenyah and John Dankwa; golf with Angus Guberman; healthy conflict with Forrest Cate; plant identification and archery with Mark Warren; “classical” piano with Leah Brammer; and “jazz” piano with Ted Howe. If you’d like to hear him do music, he plays Robert Freeholder as well as a surfeit of pop musics at weekly gigs as part of The Freeholders (no relation), and he is the organist at The Church at St. John in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. He is husband to Janet Simone Parks, a nurse-midwife (APRN) and father to Orion (16), Alban (13), and Zelig (2). He teaches private piano, harpsichord, and composition lessons through his private studio.

Catherine Moulton is a pedagogue and choralist working in Marietta. Her teaching strives to embody music theoretic principles through vocal technique, stagecraft, confident self-presentation, and the building of other critical life skills. Currently she runs an active private lesson studio. In 2019, she co-founded Quadratum (with Brian Parks), an auditioned ensemble that strives to develop intelligent, self-reliant young people through rigorous musical training, direct-impact service work, and demanding expeditions. A graduate of CCCEPA, she holds a Bachelor's degree from Indiana University with additional studies taking place at Manhattan School of Music and Jacobs School of Music. During her time as Head of Education at the historic Strand Theater in the Marietta (GA) Square, she directed a vast array of shows, camps, and educational opportunities. She plays Ursula Freeholder in the lounge act The Freeholders (no relation) in The Strand's Lumière Lounge and other accommodating venues. Her pedagogical aspiration is ultimately predicated on the proven idea that children are far more capable than society allows or encourages them to be, and that limiting musical study to performance unethically diminishes both students and musics alike. Her school model needs backers; contact her if financing it or providing infrastructural resources interests you.