CRANBURY: Five middle school students earn place in regional band

By Kaitlyn Kanzler, Special Writer
   CRANBURY — Five of Cranbury School’s students were honored for their musical ability at the Feb. 12 Board of Education meeting.
   Jake Borden, Andrew Stokes, Paul Stehn, Will Huang, and Steven Ma were accepted into the Central Jersey Regional Honor Band.
   According to Chief School Administrator Susan Genco, 12 Cranbury School students auditioned for the Honor Band on Jan. 26.
   ”I participated in these types of auditions when I was in high school and it is quite an achievement to be able to succeed in this kind of setting,” Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction, Jeannine Lanphear said.
   According to music teacher Tommy Nichols, Cranbury School was one of 116 schools to have students audition for the Honor Band and that these five students were chosen out of a total of 764 middle school students.
   ”This is something that I did when I was a kid as well and I don’t think you can appreciate how many children are involved with this process, so I wanted some accurate numbers,” Mr. Nichols said. “I wrote to the president of the Central Jersey Music Educators Association and he wrote me back a little while ago and said CJMEA represents six counties, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Somerset, and Union.”
   According to Dr. Genco, Jake, whose mother is board member Kim Borden, was accepted on two instruments and will perform on the mallets for the Region Percussion Ensemble. Andrew was also accepted into the Region Percussion Ensemble.
   Paul was accepted as a percussionist for the Region Orchestra along with Steven Ma who scored in the top ten out of 80 clarinet students that auditioned, according to Dr. Genco.
   Will was accepted into the Region Band on trombone.
   ”There are technical components, musical and artistic components and just many, many hours of preparation of going into preparing the audition piece and the scales that are required,” Ms. Lamphear said.
   According to Ms. Lamphear, students can spend anywhere between six months to a year preparing the technical piece chosen for their instrument and perfecting their artistry in addition to memorizing all their scales.
   ”You walk into a room and someone just simply says play from measure 12-32 and you have to start playing,” Ms. Lamphear said. “What it takes to be able to walk into that audition room after you see someone else come out, and they say what they’ve played and you know whatever they played is not what you’ll play when you go in, to keep composed and to be successful is really a testament to the student’s preparation and ability.”
   According to Board member Evelyn Spann, it had been several years since Cranbury School has participated in the auditions.
   According to Ms. Borden, Dave Pollack, another music teacher at the school, really pushed to have to the program brought back to Cranbury School.
   ”We are just really so proud that we have middle school (students) able to achieve this level of artistry and technical ability,” Ms. Lamphear said.
   The board and Dr. Genco congratulated the students several times on their achievement.