During all lunch bands on Monday, students witnessed live rock performances in the cafeteria from students currently enrolled in Advanced Modern Band. Additionally, the band program sold “holiday grams” to members of the community, which allowed them to send live performances to friends in their classrooms throughout the day. Members of Symphonic Band, Wind, and Jazz Ensemble performed these holiday grams.

Band Director Thomas LaRocca organized the event to give student musicians a chance to showcase what they had been working on throughout the first semester.

Social Studies teacher Francis McCaughey said that the cafeteria performances were impressive. “The [performers] were all great, there was a lot of great music,” he said. 

Sophomore Alyssa Goga said she was pleasantly surprised by the preparation of the cafeteria performers, and that she thoroughly enjoyed the performance. “Everyone looked very happy and excited for the upcoming holiday break,” she said. “It was very exhilarating and there was a lot of passion, the whole cafeteria was excited to watch.”

“This should definitely happen more often, it should be more public,” said Mr. McCaughey. He said that “there should be more after school concerts” for students to be able to show what they’ve been practicing in their band classes.

Happening concurrently, students from intermediate and advanced level band classes delivered holiday band grams to students who purchased one for their friends or teachers. These performers visited classes and performed short snippets of holiday songs.

Mr. LaRocca posted instructions for students on Google Classroom and emailed faculty members to let them know performers might come to class (if they would allow it). He described the grams as a “a fun holiday treat with a short song” and said that “band members [would] deliver them to classrooms and perform a quick tune for the recipient.”

Catherine Wang, a member of the Wind Ensemble, said she had fun “going door to door” delivering these holiday band grams. “ I would do it again in a heartbeat,” she said. She also said that the students in the classes she visited were “more excited than us” to watch the short musical performances.

The money from the holiday grams will put towards costs of future performances, trips, and gear replacement, according to Mr. LaRocca’s post.

“I really loved getting the holiday gram. It was kind of embarrassing at first but I ended up being really happy and enjoying [the experience],” said sophomore Lilly Chase, a recipient of a holiday gram. “It relieved a lot of the stress from myself and my classmates. Overall, it was a really cool experience, and I love the idea.”