It’s featured the Beatles, John Philip Sousa, Led Zeppelin and Booker T. Washington, and on April 14, around 185 Los Gatos High School students joined the ranks of people who have graced the stage at Carnegie Hall, during the 2023 Harmonic Convergence Concert.
The Italian Renaissance Revival building at West 57th Street in New York is one of America’s most beloved instructions, known for its prestige and fantastic acoustics.
“There were in awe, just from the scale of the building,” said Maricel Riley, LGHS’s choir director, recalling the reactions of her young singers. “When you snap your finger, like that, the sound just reverberates all the way to the back of the room.”
The trip was a marker of reawakening for a music program that was decimated by the realities of the pandemic.
“Online learning was very difficult,” Riley said, adding she’s relieved to have students singing in-person again. “There’s really no equivalent.”
As kids have returned to classes and practice sessions in the music building, the volunteers have begun to build the various ensembles back up from scratch, while the Wildcat Foundation has continued to seek donations from community members.
Los Gatos Music Boosters helps fund items, like instruments and scores, that are beyond what can be purchased via elementary and high school budgets.
Sasha Shkolnik and Simona Freeman recently decided to take on a co-presidentship of the group, something that hadn’t been seen since a husband and wife filled the role, years ago.
“We thought we could make a difference together,” said Freeman, who says it was Shkolnik who reached out to her with the idea. “We’ve been trying to focus on building our community.”
Riley said the duo has put a lot of effort into their twice-monthly newsletters and have helped galvanize parent support for the program.
“The best part is they are really good with communication with the parent community,” Riley said. “I feel we have this great thing going.”
And there’s a lot to do.
After all, the high school alone has three concert bands, a jazz band, a marching band, a color guard, a winter percussion program, two orchestra classes, three choir classes, an AP music theory class and an introduction to music theory class.
“Before AI takes over, we would like our kids to learn the art,” Shkolnik said, pointing to the benefits of music studies. “It forms a well-rounded adult.”
Riley says the program can help instill a sense of purpose and belonging in students.
“They’re part of something that they love to do,” she said. “They’re into it. It’s also a means of expressing themselves. And they come to terms with their emotions.”
Participating in a choir, for example, is about more than just singing, she notes.
“Music is self-expression,” she said. “It’s so important for the soul.”
Parents were responsible for footing the bill for the New York foray, although some financial assistance was made available to some students who wouldn’t have been able to go otherwise, Freeman said.
When 207 Los Gatos community members, including 21 adult chaperones, touched down in New York, April 11, it was about much more than exploring the Big Apple and performing a few pieces.
It was an opportunity for students from across the country to come together in a way that hasn’t been possible for a good chunk of the past three years.
That’s because Carnegie Hall was to be filled with the sounds of three mass student choirs belting out notes under the direction of principal conductors Andrew Clark, Rollo Dilworth and Tesfa Wondemagegnehu.
The Los Gatos Symphonic Wind Ensemble and Los Gatos High School Orchestra were also slated to perform.
On April 13, after a couple days of sightseeing, the band and orchestra received a clinic in a Manhattan studio from expert instructors to hone their craft and took part in a rehearsal, while the choral contingent received high marks during an adjudicated performance at Queens College’s Aaron Copland School of Music.
The next morning, as the musicians got a break to do more tourism-related activities, the choir members had a cue-to-cue practice.
‘Music is self-expression. It’s so important for the soul.’
—Maricel Riley, Los Gatos High School’s choir director
Of three singing collectives, Los Gatos would be part of the “grandioso” group.
Seeing about 300 students take the stage at the same time was impressive, recalled Shkolnik.
“It was quite remarkable to hear and see,” she said.
At one point, all the other students sat down and just the Los Gatos singers were left standing, with Riley guiding their voices.
“When I was little, in 3rd grade, my only dream I had was to sing in a choir,” she said, sharing her appreciation for what the students were feeling at that moment. “When they started singing you could tell they were having a good time.
“I know that they were proud of their performance.”
This was Riley’s first time conducting at Carnegie Hall.
“It’s unbelievable,” she said, noting that the frequency management in the building is so good that if you removed a candy wrapper, the noise would be heard on the other side of the room. “It was surreal.”
Shkolnik said her 14-year-old son Jacob, a trumpet player, was thrilled with the experience.
“‘Mom, I took a picture from the stage of Carnegie Hall,’” she remembers him telling her, adding she was a little nervous for him—but not too much. “I knew he was going to be great.”
The high school’s band director, Ken Nakamoto, led them through three songs.
And Armeen Ghafourpour, LGHS’s orchestra director, conducted another three pieces.
At the very end, Los Gatos students joined with the other signers to debut “To Repair,” a piece touching on the legacy of slavery in America by Wondemagegnehu, who conducted.
After the finale, Riley was pretty beat, but some of the parents headed down to Times Square and Rockefeller Center to shop and get one last New York excursion in, before heading back to Silicon Valley the next day.
Riley says the trip helped inspire confidence in the students.
“They were really proud of their work, because they did really, really well,” she said, adding this has had a lasting effect on their abilities back in Los Gatos. “They take pride in their performance.”
Riley admits she’s been a bit of a “zombie” the last couple weeks, after the heights of the big New York trip.
But now that she feels human again, she’s already begun to dream bigger.
“Looking ahead in the future,” she said, “maybe we’re ready for an international performance tour.”
So good to see this. Great article by Drew on this wonderful achievement with the performance by Los Gatos High school musicians at Carnegie Hall. Kudos to LGHS directors Maricel Riley, Ken Nakamoto and Armeen Ghafourpour.