Student Jam at the High School (Video)

Elementary School students from throughout the district filed into the East Brunswick High School early Tuesday morning, each carrying a black music case – some of them large, some small.

The kids dropped their bags and took seats in the auditorium and waited for some of their older peers to take to the stage. It was High School Band Day, the annual meeting of elementary school students and high school band musicians. Throughout the morning the high school students would demonstrate instruments, play a little and finish up with a jam session along side the district’s youngest musicians.

 “They’re impressed with the high school kids and when they get the chance to play with them, hopefully they’ll be more impressed and want to play even better,” said Supervisor of Arts Education Jeffrey Lesser.

High School Band Day shows elementary school musicians just what they can accomplish if they continue playing their instruments when they move onto Hammarskjold, Churchill Junior High School and eventually the high school, and staff members hope to excite and inspire the fifth-graders into continuing their musical education.

“What’s really cool is that we go through each instrument with the high school students playing them, so they get to hear just what a high school student sounds like,” said high school music teacher David Papenhagen.

Students also got to meet the Hammarskjold seventh-grade music teacher John Kish, who had some words of advice for the youngsters.

“It’s very important that you sign up for band, because people in the high school band played every year,” said Kish to the students. “Any year you stop band, is the year you stop forever.”

But the “all ages event” wasn’t just for the elementary school students. Papenhagen said his students love the event, particularly because they went through the program when they were younger.

“They love it because they’ve all done it before,” he said. “It’s a great recruitment tool, and it’s fun for them to show their colleagues how it’s done."