Carnegie Hall 2010

    I attended North Park middle school, now known as the North Park Academy of the Arts in Pico Rivera, CA. I joined band "The Band that is Wearing Green". There I did a lot of volunteer work through Mr.Wakefields volunteer program called Kids helping Kids. Mr. Wakefield was the band director at that time. Along with other classmates we volunteered at Shriners Hospitals, the Children's institute of Los Angeles and at a religious organization. I would teach the clarinet at the Children's Institute and at a religious organization. At the Shriners Hospital I would teach the recorder. I was always amazed at how children were so resilient, a particular child at Shiners, I recall, would play the recorder with their feet. At these locations the children's experiences ranged from health conditions, neglect trauma to some of the highest levels of abuse one can imagine. I would volunteer with my friends, we would practice a couple of days with the band after school and about two to three days out of the week we would dedicate to volunteer work. I was very close to some of my band friends; Mr. Wakefield was a religious man, every morning he would pick up some of the band members and we would go to church before the school day started. At the end of 6th grade Mr.Wakefield announced that the following year Honor band (8th graders) would begin to practice to go to Carnegie Hall again. There were several invitations for 6th graders to go to Carnegie Hall, at the time of announcement, I was not one the invited members. However, as summer band practice started, he extended an offer to upcoming 7th graders who were interested and had not yet been invited. I was surprised, I was the only one that showed up after school to show interest in going. After letting my friend know she would also go to the band practices for Carnegie. 

    The band had performed there a couple times, but they had been much more competitive back then. While I was there, Mr.Wakefields goals had changed. He transitioned the band from the competitive world to one where we focus more on healing others through music, a more volunteer based and philanthropic approach to teaching music. At some point during the summer he had us take down the trophies, he didn't just let us throw them away; he let us smash them on the concrete. As kids, we did just that, it was exhilarating, third place, 2nd place, 1st place trophies all shattering. A couple of times right before a student would bring down the trophies with all their might, Mr.Wakefield would interrupt as say "Oh no, not that one, that one is a good one" with a smile on his face, it felt a bit tauntingly, I'm sure not of real concern for the trophies breaking, those who watch the students dramatic pause of swing couldn't help but giggle. He had also announced that we would be taking kids from our volunteer activates to Carnegie Hall with us to perform. So, we took kids from our outreach program, but in addition to that we invited a child that had been impacted by the Haiti earthquake, she was in a wheelchair from a building collapse. 

    J. Lawrence an old friend of Mr. Wakefield composed musical pieces and arrangements for the band to play. They were re-arrangements of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and premiers "Pieta" and "Promenade". We also played the "1812 Overture", the "Toy Symphony" and "Farwell". The booster club parents would make spaghetti on long practice days. Eventually, we got to practice with our student from our volunteer work and a week or two before we left to Carnegie Hall the girl from Haiti arrived. We finally got to the morning and were getting ready to depart for New York. The student that was soloing "Pieta" was late, we got an the charter busses and fortunately still got to the airport on time. We had a long list of activities planned when we got to New York. We went to the Cupcake store, we visited the empire state building and the statue of liberty, and we had infamous New York Pizza and watched Wicken on Broadway. 

Finally, the day to perform at Carnegie Hall had arrived, April 2nd, 2010. We were all very nervous, we took out instruments, put them together and placed them in the back wall of the backstage room we were in, we got in line according to our respective sitting arrangements and we walked out on stage. I recall the girl assigned to announce the band and musical pieces' voice was shaking, she was a flute player that sat in the first row. I sat in the back left of the conductors view with most of my friends, the last row of the clarinet section. I was not the best, but I felt very fortunate to be there, especially as a 7th grader performing with the 8th grade honor band and our students from the volunteer organizations. That night instead of wearing green the girls wore long black dresses, and the boys wore black suites. It felt like there were two hundred of us on that stage. The students who played the re-arrangements of "Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" got wooden recorders. I played the recorder for those two musical pieces. and I played the nightingale whistle in the Toy Symphany, my clarinet for the others. Our students from Shriners, from the religious organization, from children's institute and from Haiti sat and stood around and behind the band. I still recall the squeaks here and there of thew instruments. We were not as polished as we could have been but we had fun and we had a good purpose. The last piece we played was Farwell and we exited the stage but not entirely as a student ran back to wave by to the audience as it was done in the sound of music. We headed to the lobby, there we got medals from Mr. Wakefield, they said North Park Middle School, Carnegie Hall April 2nd 2010, with a Carnegie Hall drawing right in the middle. We got to meet J.Lawrence the composer of some of the pieces we played. I got his Autograph on the playbill. As we left Carnegie Hall Mr. Wakefield asked if I could push the wheelchair of the Haitian girl, to which I said yes. A parent held my clarinet, as I pushed a wheelchair through the sidewalks and across streets of New York.

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