Dream trip to Carnegie Hall for college musicians _ News
- 1. CARNEGIE HALL
Dream trip to Carnegie Hall for college musicians
MAY 15, 2013 7:30 AM • BY STEPHANIE LOPEZ SPECIAL
TO THE ENTERPRISE
Every musician has a dream and it almost
always involves playing in New York City in a
fantastic venue — in a place like Carnegie Hall.
Fresno City College’s wind ensemble was able
to do exactly that, under the direction of Dale Engstrom, a Kingsburg resident and director of
bands at the college.
“If there is one place where you say you would like to play in your lifetime it’d probably be
Carnegie Hall and now we’ve done it — so it was very cool,” Engstrom said.
“Overall it was a great experience and it was one of those onceinalifetime things that I
think all of the students will remember.”
Engstrom, along with 56 musicians, including Brenda Cortez and Sarah Porter of Kingsburg,
participated in the New York International Music Festival in April. They were accompanied
by Larry Honda, Fresno City College’s music department chair who played a feature with
the band, and 10 others.
Plans to attend the festival started about a year ago, when Dr. Lawrence “Larry” Sutherland,
former director of bands at California State University, Fresno, and current artistic director of
the New York International Music Festival, put in a good word for the students, Engstrom
said.
Usually musicians have to send in a DVD and audio recording to be considered, let alone
accepted to play in the festival, but Fresno City College’s wind ensemble was accepted on
Sutherland’s recommendation.
Engstrom said the students were very excited and overwhelmed to be playing at such a
fantastic venue.
“Some of them had never even been out of California, or had never been on an airplane
before, so it was a new experience not only the playing at Carnegie Hall but just the
experience of being in New York,” Engstrom said.
However, this trip was not only a time of firsts for the students, it was also a first for
Engstrom, who had never been on the Carnegie Hall stage before. Engstrom said he had
been in the hall over 10 years ago as a chaperone and parent to see his daughter perform
as part of the Kingsburg High School jazz choir, but to actually be on that stage and conduct
was “pretty special.”
“The first thing we did was play a chord, just a chord, and we let it ring, and it was just a
- 2. beautiful sound,” Engstrom said.
In addition to doing what he loves — conducting beautiful music — Engstrom got all the
perks that come with playing at one of the greatest venues in the world.
“For the director you have your own green room or waiting room before you go on, and I had
it all afternoon and into the evening, and it had like a baby grand piano in there, it was really
nice,” Engstrom said. “And it’s where all the great directors of Carnegie Hall have stayed,
like Leonard Bernstein and all of them. I felt like I was in the presence of the music gods in
there, and it was a great experience.”
This trip was also a singular experience for Honda, as this was also the first time he was on
that very special stage.
“For any musician it’s considered like the pinnacle of your career to be able to play at
Carnegie Hall,” said Honda.
He added that it was not just the amazing acoustics that made the venue special, it was also
the building itself. Honda said the Isaac Stern Auditorium inside of Carnegie Hall was simply
beautiful, with its high dome ceiling, Europeanstyle box seats and classical architecture. He
added that the hall had a very special feeling of history.
And the Fresno City College Wind Ensemble added to that history, as the closing act of the
entire music festival, which lasted a couple of days and showcases the music of other high
school and colleges.
“The group really did perform as a finaletype group. They were the best band, an exciting
close to the whole festival,” Honda said, adding that their performance was very
“inspirational.”
While in New York City, students also played a concert in Central Park and had some free
time to explore the city. Engstrom said some of the students were able to catch Broadway
shows like “Wicked” and “The Phantom of the Opera.” They also went on a dinner cruise on
the Hudson River.
One of the trumpet players who attended the trip, Jason Cruz, 29, said it was very exciting
to have such a unique opportunity.
“A lot of people said just the thrill of being onstage was just such a unique experience and
very, very humbling to be a small community college performing in one of the biggest
venues in the world,” said Cruz.
He added that the band did a lot of touring and tried to cram in as much as they possibly
could in the few days they were in New York, but that there was just too much to see in such
little time.
Saxophone player Ross Williams, 21, had an interesting solution to this predicament of not
having enough time to see everything.
“A few of us got up like at 4 a.m. and just did literally everything we could in like five hours or
so,” said Williams. “We went all over that city, Grand Central Station, the World Trade
Center Memorial, pretty much everything you could do in one morning. We got to see the
sunrise over Central Park and that was really nice. As cool as all the buildings are, just
