At Center Stage

Come on, just shake it off. Shake it off.

I can hear a loud clanking somewhere in the distance just as a line of overhead spotlights come to life, illuminating the entire stage around me. Suddenly the room feels as though the temperature has increased to an uncomfortable degree, and my heart sinks as I stare into the blinding suns above and realize there would be no hiding from my audience. Based on the terrified expressions painting the faces of my fellow bandmates patrolling the stage around me, I’m far from alone in this realization.

Don’t look into the lights. Avoid the hundreds of eyes in the audience.

Getting invited to play at a venue as prestigious as Carnegie Hall in New York City is no small feat, and as such you would imagine that the immediate reaction of the JF Wind Symphony would be ecstatic. And while we have indeed been excited, there has also been a lingering worry of that one possibility: what if our position had been granted as some kind of mistake? Did our band of ragtag high schoolers really qualify for the honor of performing at one of the most important music halls on the face of the planet?

The percussion instruments are already lined up and waiting for my fellow percussionists and I to tune and equip with sticks and mallets for our assigned pieces. I nod at my younger sister, Melody, to retrieve the mallet bag and give Noah a less than reassuring shrug from across the stage while I go to help her. The three of us have been together from the beginning, but I think we have all felt the pressure from the moment we stepped foot in the big city. Off by the timpani drums, Julia struggles with the tuner and curses to herself while Nick passes out music to the group. This routine of frantically running from this side of a stage to the other, placing sheet music at the appropriate instruments to allow for easy transitions during performance, is hardly new to any of us. However, there is a certain special fear lingering in the air this time. Despite the fact that the event has yet to officially kick off, I can feel far too many faceless eyes staring intently at me from the hundreds of empty seats in the distance.

Without a doubt, this music hall is much larger than any venue I have ever performed at, at least in regard to indoor concert bands. I may have performed for much larger audiences as part of marching band competitions across Virginia, but at least in such scenarios as those, there was the benefit of endless open space and fresh air. Within Carnegie Hall, even with the substantial size of the room, I feel more cramped than I ever have before. The long, well-lit walls in the far distance slowly start closing in around the stage, and any sense of comfort flies out the door all at once.

Wait, where is everyone going?

I’m so caught up in my rising worries that I hardly notice the band being escorted offstage and separated by gender to get changed into proper performance attire. I quickly match their pace in order to catch up as we make our way to the dressing area, which feels like leaving a quiet oasis only to enter a minefield.

“How the heck do these things work?” A clarinet player, Matthew, exclaims in frustration as he waves a bow tie in the air until his friend comes to the rescue.

“Does it really matter if we wear the cummerbund?” Someone sighs from the floor as they struggle to wrap it around their waist. “No, seriously, the fuck is a cummerbund for?”

“I wonder how things are looking on the girls’ side of the wall, huh?” Bryce asks his fellow baritone player Devon, raising his hand for a high five and instead receiving a solid punch in the shoulder.

After the longest hour in history, the band is suited up. Every bow tie is fastened, every glittering necklace is tied, and each collar tucked. I can already feel the packed storage room the group is crammed in getting stuffy, but there’s no time to relax now. It’s go time.

It’s go time.

The band is met by an official, a young man with frizzled hair and a nervous energy, who escorts us back in the direction we came from. To my horror, when we reunite with the spotlights, the faceless audience has been exchanged for hundreds of very real men, women, and children eagerly discussing amongst themselves. A young teen fiddling around with his phone get scolded at by his parents while a small girl a couple rows down is shamelessly taking a selfie utilizing the flash with hers. One suited older man sits alone, staring intently at the stage as though he holds a grudge with it. I gulp as everyone makes their way along the stage to their designated sections, where we await further instructions. The crowd politely applauds as we walk in, as our band director, David Webb, motions for everyone other than the percussionists to be seated. He then turns to address the audience.

“Have we got a show for you tonight!” Webb exclaims excitedly as the rest of us fidget in our spots behind him. Finally, after two decades of late-night practices, he stands in Carnegie, ready for the performance of his life. Webb’s presence demands attention, but not in a fearful way. I can’t help but be happy for him. Who would have known when he was teaching me how to strike a xylophone back in seventh grade that we’d both be together on this stage?

“We’re going to start off our program with a lovely little piece you may have heard of before: Blue Shades!” He announces to the endless souls making up the audience, many of whom have never seen or even heard of us before. I should be nervous at the simple mention of this title, as the intensity of Blue Shades is beyond that of any piece I’ve performed on its own before, but by this point my brain has nearly drifted into a state of disassociation. I twirl my marimba mallets between my palms and look up to see director Webb now suddenly raising his arms to us, signaling the upcoming downbeat.

“This is it, guys!” Melody blurts from a few instruments down.

Let’s hope being invited here wasn’t a mistake.

Just like that, I felt a weight lifted from my mind. This feeling came from nowhere, but I wasn’t about to argue with it as I raised my arms and joined along the trumpets and woodwinds right on my cue. The entire existence is a blur as I brush off a line of sweat from my forehead and push through the piece. At this moment, I am not simply an individual. I have become a piece of a much grander puzzle, one that has perfectly combined right now to fill the entirety of the massive concert hall with the frantic sounds of one intense piece of music.

The notes of our melody collide and diminish slowly with a soft decrescendo followed by silence. I squeeze my eyes shut for a few moments as the world around me deafens intensely. When I open them again, I watch as a few dozen audience members have begun to stand from their seats. Following the thunder of countless pairs of feet raising from their chairs, a massive roar of applause explodes across the room and reverberates from the walls.

This is really happening!

All at once, I finally realize what all of our hard work over the past several years has been for. Here we are performing at one of the most globally recognized concert halls, playing our hearts out for a crowd that is clearly noticing all of the effort that it took to reach this moment. This isn’t about the competition, and now I see that it never really was. It was just about this moment. The fact that we were chosen to perform at all was the real victory by itself.

Webb turns from waving at the audience to face us once again, raising his arms in preparation for the beginning of the second piece, grinning widely now. I smile back at him as he looks to cue me for the downbeat. This time, I’m ready for it.