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Photo courtesy of Bob Fitzgerald.
OMHS Band Trip
When the group traveled together to places like the Statue of Liberty, they had to learn to walk quickly like a New Yorker.
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OMHS Band Trip
The Oak Mountain High School Band faced a snowstorm during their trip to play at Carnegie Hall.
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OMHS Band Trip
Beth Noland, clarinet, and Colby Kunkel, tenor saxophone, spent many hours in their award-filled band room preparing for their New York performance.
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Photos by Oliver Morrison.
OMHS Band Trip
Band director Kevin Owenby challenged his students to perform one of the most difficult pieces a high school group can play: “Music of the Spheres” by Philip Sparke.
The spring trip to play at Carnegie Hall in New York would be the culmination of everything that many members of Oak Mountain High School band had been practicing for more than six years. Two seniors band leaders, Beth Noland and Colby Cunkel, giddily explained:
“We’re like a big family,” Noland said. “We’re around each other every hour of every day.”
“Multiply that by four years,” added Cunkel.
“Plus middle school,” reminded Noland.
“And after-school practices,” said Cunkel.
“Friday nights, Saturday competitions,” listed Noland.
“So we really know each other well,” finished Cunkel.
But bandleader Kevin Owenby wasn’t going to make it easy for them. The band already had to submit recordings a year beforehand before they could be invited. And then in November Owenby chose the music: “Music of the Spheres” by Philip Sparke.
“It’s the most rhythmically challenging piece I think I’ve ever seen,” said Travis Bender, associate director of the Oak Mountain Band.
“It’s very technically challenging,” Owenby added. “Every student had to work very hard to master their part and then had to work hard to make it fit together.”
The band received assistance from the directors of both the Auburn and the University of Alabama’s band directors. Owenby would stay up at night after putting his kids to bed to listen to recordings from the rehearsal that day and make detailed pencil marks.
By the time he got to school the next day, the musical score was filled with parts to fix. Noland, a clarinetist, would sometimes get frustrated when they practiced the piece for long hours and even wondered what all this work was for.
When the band finally got off the bus at Carnegie Hall on March 1, they faced on final challenge: a New York snowstorm. New York was in the midst of its coldest and most snow-filled February in a century. So it was a tad chaotic to herd 125 students with their uniforms and instruments through the falling snow, according to Bob Fitzgerald, whose son Drew plays in the wind ensemble.
When the band finally walked on stage, Noland said she was more excited than nervous. Normally, the crowd will stand to applaud after all three songs are finished. But the wind ensemble received multiple standing ovations after each song.
“That never happens,” said Noland.
“The acoustics were just amazing,” said Cunkel.
“You hear that note ring for seconds after,” said Noland.
“It’s one of those places where you sound better than you actually are because of how great it sounds there,” said Cunkel.
“And think of all the people that performed up there,” said Noland.
“Oh yeah, tons of people,” said Cunkel.
When Owenby finally left out the back, he heard audience members still crowing about how amazing the performance had been.
“From a musical standpoint, it’s an acoustically perfect room,” Fitzgerald said, whose older daughter went on the first Oak Mountain band trip to New York more than five years before. “To sit that and hear that as a parent, it was so emotional, so moving, a once in a lifetime thing. And for me it was twice in a lifetime.”
The snow continued to pile up, and the band was forced to scramble for a place to stay an extra night because the roads weren’t passable.
“It was kind of a big deal,” Bender said, “because most of the kids did not have enough changes of clothes or money and we were kind of hanging on by a thread so to speak.”
Although they were in one of the most exciting places in the world, Noland said, at that point all the students could pay attention to was the snow: they licked snowflakes from the sky and ducked under snowballs.
By that time, the students had already spent five days in New York and become more accustomed to “moving like a New Yorker,” as their tour guide had constantly been reminding them. Noland learned that when she said “hi” to locals, instead of having it returned with southern hospitality, they would probably ignore her.
Some students practiced saying, “Give me a dawg,” instead of asking politely for a hot dog, so the street vendor didn’t charge the a tourist price of seven bucks. They also learned that they didn’t have to keep their purses hidden under their coats, after hearing stories from their parents of strangers coming up with knives and cutting the straps.
More than 20 parents helped chaperone groups of eight students around the city, but the band got all together for big events. So Cunkel was with all his bandmates when he finally got to taste authentic Shanghai lo Mien in Chinatown after hearing his parents talk about how good it was from their time living in San Francisco.
Noland’s favorite movie when she was little was Annie, so it was a dream come true for her to see the Broadway show Wicked just like in the movie. She saw the piano in the toy store FAO Schwartz from the movie Big.
And when she ascended the Empire State building, she noticed that, because of the extreme cold, other tourists would take a quick look and head back inside.
But not Noland. She had just seen the movie Sleepless in Seattle the week before, so she lingered, pointing out famous landmarks such as Times Square and Yankee stadium, until finally someone came out and told her that it was time to leave.
