Students rose from their chairs in the Concord High School band room and swayed in rhythm as they played their clarinets, flutes, saxophones and trumpets on Friday morning. Col. Jason Fettig, band director of the U.S. Marine Band, encouraged the students to stand and move in place in order to get a better feel for the music they were practicing – a band piece called the Eighth Candle by Steve Reisteter.
“There are really important, interesting lessons that you can take from music that you really enjoy and that you really feel connected to,” Fettig told the students. “Finding that physicality in music, finding that imagery in your mind that helps you to understand how it fits together with each other.”
Members of the “President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band visited band and orchestra students at Concord High School for a 90-minute class period Friday, to work with them on technical skills and help them improve the pieces they have been preparing for upcoming performances.
Down the hall from the band room in the CHS library, U.S. Marine Band bass player Master Gunnery Sgt. Aaron Clay worked with the CHS orchestra, showing the violin, viola, cello and bass students how to tap their bows on their strings col legno while playing Stravinsky’s Theme from Rite of Spring.
Upstairs on the school auditorium stage, U.S. Marine Band percussionist Master Sgt. Jonathan Bisesi worked with a group of 14 CHS percussion students, practicing a pentatonic scale with mallets on xylophones.
The U.S. Marine Band came to Concord this week as part of a Northeast tour, following a two-year touring hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic. The group performed a concert in the Concord High School auditorium Thursday night, which was the only New Hampshire performance on this tour.
The band, which was founded in 1798, is America’s oldest continuously-active professional musical organization. The band’s mission is to provide music for the President of the United States and the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and has performed for every U.S. President since John Adams.
“In any field, getting to see people who are at the top of their field is important for students, to show them what is possible,” said Concord High School music teacher Gabe Cohen. “I think these are great opportunities for kids to see what jobs are out there.”
Concord High wasn’t the only school the Marines visited on Friday. Fifteen miles away at John Stark Regional High School in Weare, U.S. Marine Band saxophonist Staff Sgt. Connor Mikula worked with John Stark band students on things like tone production and good practice habits.
After working on the concert piece, the Concord High School band students performed their 10-minute marching band show piece for Fettig, and he gave them tips.
Concord High School junior Ella White, a flute player, said she noticed improvement in the band’s playing after the clinic with Fettig.
“Being able to rehearse a concert piece, especially one that we hadn’t really tried much before, and seeing how far it could go in just like a short clinic, that was really incredible,” White said.
White, who is also drum major in the marching band, a singer and president of the school’s Tri-M Music Honor Society, is planning to major in music in college with the goal of becoming a school music teacher some day.
“As someone who wants to be a conductor at some point, watching [Fettig] conduct was incredible in the way he got into it, and the way he was so fluid about it,” White said. “The fact that I get to see that as an aspiring musician is really, really incredible.”
Fettig, who is originally from Manchester, talked with the students about how he got his start in music while a student at Manchester Central High School, and played with a student woodwind quintet on a scholarship at the Concord Community Music School before attending college at UMass Amherst.
“Musicianship is really difficult, and it’s one of the most important things that you will have as you grow into adults,” Fettig told the students. “No matter what you study, you’ll think about these times and think about this community and working together and going through challenges together.”
Cohen said hearing Fettig’s story of starting out in the Granite State and ascending to a top national performance ensemble is important for student motivation.
“I think it’s important for kids to hear that these people who are in these very successful positions, they came from the same place,” Cohen said. “It’s attainable for anybody if you want to get there.”