Cathedral band headed to N.Y.C.

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM - Once next week comes, the Cathedral High School concert band will be on Broadway in New York City, but it won't be performing in any musical numbers there itself.

Instead, the students and their chaperones are going to take in a musical and see the sights that the Big Apple has to offer after they're done playing their instruments.

The trip has been in the making since February, when the band won an audition to perform in the rotunda United Nations building and was later invited to perform at Seton Hall University, according to band director Don Jirak.

"I'm a little nervous. You never what to expect when you play in a different place," said Jirak, who admits he's never played in New York City before.

The purpose of the trip is to reward the students for what Jirak said was an outstanding year. He said the band played some of the most difficult music possible and said he also wants to keep challenging his students by taking them to play in New York City.

On Monday morning, 56 students and 18 chaperones will board planes and fly eastward. They will play in both places on Tuesday, see the city Wednesday and will come home Thursday.

Mike Braam, an incoming senior, has traveled with the Cathedral High School band before. Braam joined the band in fifth grade and went on the band's trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., in 2001.

"I'm just really excited to go, I guess," he said.

Jirak said the trip is actually three years in the making, since fundraising for what became the New York City trip began right after the Orlando trip. Fundraising and out-of-pocket spending are propelling the Cathedral kids to Gotham City.

"We're trying to do something outside the four walls of our school," Jirak said.

Jirak found out about the audition through contacts in New York City. The school sent a videotape and an audio tape for the audition. An invitation to play at the concert band festival from Seton Hall followed.

The band rehearsed once a week by playing its standard concert program. Jirak said the band will be playing most of the materials it covered in concerts earlier this year.

After performing, the group will see Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ground Zero, the Statue of Liberty and a production of "The Phantom of the Opera."