Nine Bridgewater-Raritan High School Wind Ensemble students participated in the Region Band Concert on January 12, 2025.
The students involved in this impressive feat went through a lengthy process to be selected for these bands, and their hard work over the weekend showed. The concert took place at Rutgers University.
The Central Jersey Music Educators Association (CJMEA) Region Band consists of two band ensembles, the Symphonic Band and the Wind Ensemble. Higher-ranked students are placed in the Wind Ensemble, and the other accepted students are placed in the Symphonic Band. Though there are two ensembles, placing into any of them is a major accomplishment and something to be praised among high school band programs.
Placing into these ensembles requires a short but thorough audition, with the process of preparing taking great amounts of practice. The actual audition consists of three parts: the scales, solo and sight-reading. Scales are essentially a sequence of notes in ascending and descending order testing one’s range. A solo is a piece of music intended to be performed by an individual. Lastly, sight-reading is being given a piece of music that the performer has not seen before, and has to play. They are given 30 seconds to review it without playing it, and then have to play it.
The actual concert took place on a Sunday. Students had a reading rehearsal for their new music at the beginning of December. After that, the next time the bands met was on the weekend of the concert. They had a rehearsal on Friday night, throughout the day on Saturday and then had the concert on Sunday.
Out of the students that auditioned, nine students in the Bridgewater-Raritan High School Wind Ensemble, the audition band, made it into the band. These students were Jack Lee, clarinet; Jacky Pan, trombone; Fisayo Ogunsulire, trumpet; Ananth Raman; trumpet, Agastya Shahane; euphonium; James Krempasky, euphonium; Julian DiMaggio, percussion; Iswer Prasad Harinarayan, percussion; and Ethan Wei, percussion.
Julian DiMaggio commented on his experiences .
“Region Band is an amazing experience and I’m very happy I got in. I get the chance to work with great conductors and make music for a weekend with people who are amazing at their instruments. It’s a great opportunity and I hope all high school band students choose to audition at some point in their high school life,” he said.
