Students to play at Carnegie Hall

Jackson High's wind ensemble to perform in New York next year

April 20, 2007

Enterprise staff

Jackson High School's wind ensemble is headed

from Mill Creek to the Big Apple. The group has been

selected as part of the Carnegie Hall guest concert

series to perform May 25, 2008. Although some of

Jackson High's students have performed at Carnegie

Hall in the past, this will be the first time that the

entire ensemble will be on the New York stage.

Lesley Moffat, Jackson High's director of bands and

percussion, submitted a wind ensemble performance

CD to MidAmerica Productions earlier this year. In

early April, Moffat learned that, on the basis of that

CD, her students were selected as one of three

groups to perform at Carnegie in May next year.

The 53-member wind ensemble is an honors level,

audition-only performance group at Jackson. The

group frequently performs at the regional level.

In March, the group performed Tchaikovsky's finale to Symphony No. 4 with the Everett Symphony.

Moffat submitted a recording of that piece, as well as "Italian in Algiers" for the Carnegie audition.

Moffat did some Carnegie Hall research and learned that on its opening night there in May 1891,

Tchaikovsky was the first conductor.

Besides arranging Carnegie's guest concert series, MidAmerica also runs the National Youth

Symphony Orchestra. Over the years, a dozen of Moffat's Jackson students have individually

auditioned and been selected for the symphony and orchestra groups. As members of those groups,

students rehearsed for five days in New York with other high school and college musicians and

performed a concert at the end of the fifth day.

Junior Anna Jung, who plays flute in the ensemble, has performed at Carnegie Hall twice before with

the National Festival Orchestra. Other Jackson students have performed individually with the National

Festival Orchestra and National Wind Ensemble, both of which are made up primarily of university

and music conservatory musicians.

To raise the funds needed for the Carnegie Hall performance and the rest of the band and percussion

students' performances with the Heritage Music Festival in New York City, the Jackson High School

Band Boosters are putting on the third annual "Par-Tee Fore Band" Golf Tournament.

It will be held on Monday, May 14, at the Mill Creek Golf and Country Club. More information is

available from Brad or Deanne at 425-385-3838.

Enterprise/CHRIS GOODENOW

Jackson sophomore Katie Dungan (in focus, center-right), and

fellow members of the wind ensemble rehearse, Monday,

April 16, 2007 at Jackson High School. The other members of

the band are junior Brooke Dennis (from left), sophomores

Victor Hoang, Jacob Shrekengost and John Charlson (playing

trombone), and junior Brittany Carlson (far right).