Monadnock Ledger-Transcript
Published: 10/24/2016 6:36:31 PM
For the first time, Mason Elementary School has a band of its own.
The new after-school club had its first rehearsal last week and played its first notes ever as a group.
“Today we’re just going to put our instruments together and try to make a sound,” Kristina Levick, band director and school music teacher, said to open the hourlong session. “It’s not easy, so we’re just going to learn to make a sound.”
Before the practice was over, they played a few measures of a song from their instructional books as a band.
Levick, who is now the music teacher, chorus director and band director at both Mason Elementary School and Florence Rideout Elementary School in Wilton, said that the new band is all to the credit of the students.
She is in her second year at Mason. In the first, she taught private snare drum lessons to a pair of fourth-grade students.
Now, it is a full band. Present at Wednesday’s rehearsal were three flutists, three clarinetists, two trumpeters and the two aforementioned percussionists.
That’s 10 students, and Levick says she expects another. The band is open to fourth and fifth-graders, of which there are only 26 at Mason Elementary. Nearly half of eligible students are in the band.
“We had the chorus and someone started talking about starting a band,” she said. “One thing led to another.”
The players have varying degrees of experience and motivation, ranging from following the lead of an older sibling to expanding an existing love of music to really wanting to learn how to play “The Imperial March” from “Star Wars.”
The band meets to practice once a week, meaning it will have about 24 Wednesdays to rehearse before the celebratory end-of-year concert, which, along with Wilton’s, will be the week of May 7, 2017. Wilton also has a December concert before the holiday break, and Mason’s chorus will have a sing-along then as well. As the band goes from its first meeting to its big show, Levick says it’s one step at a time.
“We made a sound!” she said to wind up the first rehearsal. “We played our first song!”
Brandon Latham can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 228 or blatham@ledgertranscript.com. He is also on Twitter @blathamMLT.