NORTHAMPTON — Students in the Northampton High School band will have the opportunity to perform in one of the most prestigious concert venues in the world this week.
The band will take in part in the National Band and Orchestra Festival at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The festival begins Wednesday and runs through Sunday.
“It’s really exciting for the kids to have an opportunity to play on a stage with such a rich history and such amazing acoustics,” band director Deb Coon said. “It won’t be like anything they’ve ever played before.”
Carnegie Hall is located in midtown Manhattan and was built in 1891 by business magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. The hall is widely considered one of the most prestigious venues in the world, particularly for classical music.
The Northampton band is one of 11 high school bands from around the country selected to perform in the festival out of the 72 that auditioned via recordings, Coon said.
According to Coon, the Northampton band is likely the only non-auditioned band in the festival, meaning that any student, regardless of age and skill level, is welcome to join.
“Many of the bands participating come from much larger programs with leveled and auditioned bands,” Coon said. “We have freshmen in there … who are working very hard to improve very quickly and are tackling some very difficult material.”
The band has been rehearsing for their performance for about 90 minutes every day, Monday through Friday, for over a moth, Coon said.
“We have to be completely polished,” she said, adding that students are also required to submit recordings of their individual parts as homework. “Everybody needs to get their parts to a real place of excellence.”
Students and staff have organized various fundraisers to help cover the cost of the trip. In addition to a telethon that was held in November, the band has held bake sales, sold Krispy Kreme doughnuts and organized trivia nights.
“We actually have to drive all the way down to Mohegan Sun to get (the Krispy Kreme doughnuts),” Coon said. “It’s worth it though, everybody loves them.”
The band has raised almost $18,000, enough to knock $400 off the price of the trip for each of the band’s 44 members. Additional assistance will be provided to students in need, Coon said.
Coon said she tries to organize one trip for the band every year. The Northampton band performed at the same festival at Carnegie Hall in 2014, and has performed at other venues including the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Strathmore in Baltimore and Symphony Hall in Boston.
This will be Coon’s final year as the school’s band director after 16 years. “I thought this would be a good way to sort of cap off my final year,” she said.