Las Lomas Students Perform at Carnegie Hall
Courtesy of Timmy Grabow
From the 18,000 students around the world who auditioned for the 600 spots in the High School Honors Performance Series at Carnegie Hall, junior Timmy Grabow and senior Pete Cerdan were selected to perform at the historic music hall in Feb.
Carnegie Hall is a big music venue in New York City where many famous musicians have performed, such as Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and many more, as well as many prestigious orchestras, choral groups, and bands.
Once a year, the hall hosts the High School Honors Performance Series, which is a program that selects 600 students who are either put in one of three choir groups or one of three instrumental groups.
Music teacher Kara Ravina nominated Grabow and Cerdan to audition for the series.
One reason Ravina nominated Grabow and Cerdan is because of their leadership skills.
“If you ask who the leaders are in my class, everyone would point to them,” she said. “They’re dynamic. They can also handle the pressure.”
After being nominated, the students must submit audition pieces. Grabow and Cerdan worked very hard on their audition pieces be- fore recording and submitting them.
“There’s a little bit of politics that go into play,” Ravina said. “The earlier you submit, the better the chances because if they hear a fantastic one they may fill they spot and they don’t always take people who have been in it before.”
The process of practicing and recording the audition “is pretty intense because you have to come up with something absolutely perfect and you can’t tweak it on the computer. It has to be raw, exactly as you play,” said Ravina.
Grabow and Cerdan played in the jazz band section of the series. Timmy Grabow played the base trombone.
“I wasn’t nervous because I just thought I had no chance you know,” he said.
When he found out he got in, Grabow said,”I couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day and I do think it shaped what I think I want to do because I think I want to do music for a living. It was a really amazing experience.”
Grabow performed on a Sunday afternoon in New York. He played in the band with one hundred other kids as well as playing beside an orchestra with wind players.
Courtesy of Timmy Grabow
Pete Cerdan was the second student from our school who got into the program. Pete, who plays the trumpet, had auditioned once before so his hopes weren’t set on getting in but when he found out he got in, he was very excited. He said it was stressful to keep up with school work and practicing the pieces for the performance.
“I got the principal chair so I had all the solos so that was a little stressful,” said Cerdan. But overall he had a great time at the performance and enjoyed his first visit to New York.
“These are people who love music, who plan on doing it in the future. They are very serious musicians,” said Ravina.
