The band portion of this year’s Festival of the Arts at Bridgewater Raritan High School’s Vaughn Stapleton Gymnasium took place on March 24 with performances from all Bridgewater-Raritan School District bands in Grades 6 through 12.

The Festival of the Arts, the signature event of the school year for the fine and performing arts program in the district, is an event aimed to showcase the hard work and practice of Bridgewater-Raritan’s fine arts students enrolled in the district’s band, orchestra, choir and visual art programs.

The night started with a few remarks from the district’s Supervisor of  Fine Arts, Matthew McCarthy, who explained the sheer size and quality of the Bridgewater-Raritan fine arts program, one of the most comprehensive in the state. His words were followed by the playing of the national anthem, performed by the Middle School band under the direction of  Barron Caramano. 

The sixth grade intermediate bands, under the direction of Hillside and Eisenhower teacher Jacob Ulm, then performed “Alpha Squadron” by Greg Hills. This was the sixth graders’ first performance and first year of participation in the Fine Arts Festival program. 

Their performance was followed by both bands from the middle school. Under the direction of Mr. Caramano, the seventh-grade band performed “Dance of the Tumblers” and the eighth grade band, under the direction of Ashlen Udell, played “How Far I’ll Go” arranged by Lin Manuel Miranda from the movie Moana. 

In addition to curricular bands, the Bridgewater-Raritan Middle Schools offers an audition-only after school band program for students who want to maximize their middle school band experience. This group is called the Bridgewater-Raritan Middle School Wind Ensemble and is under the direction of Ms. Udell. They performed “Forge Ahead” by Shirley Mier. 

The end of the middle school performance marked the introduction of the high school bands, the final three groups who performed during the concert. Nick Mossa conducted the concert band, a group consisting of only freshmen, in playing “Blue Ridge Overture” by Frank Erickson. Their performance was then followed by the mixed grade Symphonic Band who performed the Tetris melody, “Fields of Sunflowers: Russian Folk Song Medley.”

Similar to the middle school, the high school offers an audition-only Wind Ensemble. However, this is a curricular band built into students’ schedules. The Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Thomas Bourgault, performed two pieces: “Eternal Memoir” and “Bullets and Bayonets March.”

The Festival of the Arts united all band students to celebrate each other’s progress as musicians and provided the students with invaluable band experiences. The next main event for the high school bands will be the spring concert, along with the Westfield Invitational for Concert Band.