Summer band gets pupils
in rhythm for new year
BY CLARE MARIE CELANO
Staff Writer
FREEHOLD — As the days of summer wore down, children in the borough school district’s summer band camp program culminated their two-week stint with a concert on the grounds of the Freehold Intermediate School, Park Avenue.
Under the direction of Eric Gross and Beth Vaughn, 37 music students in the fourth through eighth grade displayed their talents and the hard work they put into learning three special musical pieces.
Gross is the music director at the Park Avenue Elementary School and the Freehold Intermediate School, and Vaughn is the music and choral director at the Freehold Learning Center, Dutch Lane Road.
According to Gross, who has been leading the schools’ students in music for three years, this is the first time the school has offered a summer band camp program. He said the response and turnout for the program was wonderful and he’s hoping that band camp will be a regular offering every summer for those who wish to continue their musical instruction even after school lets out.
Band camp began on Aug. 18 and ended on Aug. 29. The outdoor con- cert was blessed with a sunny and seasonable summer sky as the youngsters played to an audience who came to hear their accomplishments.
The students entertained their parents and school officials, including new Superintendent of Schools Philip Meara, Board of Education Secretary Anthony Tonzini, Freehold Intermediate School Principal Darrell Jackson and new Park Avenue Elementary School Principal Joseph Jerabek.
The band was introduced by sixth-grader Jessica Filapek, 11, who plays the flute. The young musician thanked the guests for attending the concert and thanked the two musical directors for making the program available to them.
Children, who attended the band camp for two hours a day for the two-week duration, entertained the audience with their rendition of "Montego Bay," performed by Park Avenue and Freehold Learning Center students who were then joined by students from the intermediate school. Together they played "Trumpet Voluntary." The group then dazzled their audience, bringing a smile to many of the guests when they teamed up their instruments to play the theme song from the Looney Tunes cartoons.
One could not help but smile listening to the students as they played the upbeat and off-beat tune, zig-zagging their clarinets, flutes, saxophones, trumpets, trombones and keyboards, backed up by percussion, up and down, and finishing off the famous and amusing tune most people remember from their own youth. Predictably, the students ended the number by putting their instruments aside and reciting the famous words of the cartoon character Porky Pig — "Tha, Tha, Tha, That’s all, folks!"
Gross said the camp will "give band students who have worked hard in school all year a jump on the new year of music, after being home all summer."
He added that band students will "be fresh and ready to participate in the band and get a head start on preparing for the winter concert, now that the new school year has begun."