FORT GREENE — Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School might not promote itself as an arts magnet school, but it could.
Consider that its symphonic band — featuring 23 brass, percussion, and woodwind musicians — performed on March 28 at New York City’s prestigious High School Honors Music Festival at the Grand Street Educational Campus Auditorium in Williamsburg.
The Bishop Loughlin band was the only Catholic high school represented at the festival, which featured 175 schools. Among those were Edward R. Murrow High School, Midwood; Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, Astoria; and the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in Manhattan.
No awards were given, except for the honor of performing with other elite high school-age musicians from all over New York City. To qualify, musicians are nominated by their teachers, but they must all audition before the festival organizers.
Josiah Celius, a senior who plays baritone and alto saxophones, said the Bishop Loughlin Band prepared well for the festival.
“Before we got on stage, I went up to a couple of kids, and some of them said they just got the music the day before the show,” Josiah said. “But here at Loughlin, our teachers have been helping us since January to learn the pieces.
“We felt like we were some of the most skilled and most prepared.”
That’s remarkable, noted Andrew Leary, the school’s vice president of institutional advancement.
“We don’t audition students for music,” Leary explained. “The majority of these 23 students had never touched an instrument before they walked through our doors.
“They learned here. They grew here. And now they’re performing alongside students from the city’s most elite music programs.”
The festival is sponsored by the Music Educators Association of New York City and the NYC Public Schools Arts Office. According to the organizers, this festival represents the “highest skilled high school student musicians in Symphonic Band, Orchestra, Jazz, Chorus, and Modern Band.”
Music teacher Everett Wilson, who graduated from Bishop Loughlin in 1991, said the school’s music programs have always produced extraordinary performers for years.
The school has a rich history of musical performances.
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When the Diocese of Brooklyn formed in 1853, its first parish, now the Cathedral Basilica of St. James, had a school for boys on Jay Street in Brooklyn. In 1865, following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, the school’s band had the distinction of performing at a designated stop of his casket in Manhattan.
“I like to say we’re keeping the tradition going,” Wilson said. “Officially, we’re not an art school or music school, but kind of, we are.”
In 1926, the St. James school became one of three diocesan high schools for boys. It moved to Clermont Avenue in 1933. It then took on a new name — Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School — to honor the diocese’s first prelate, Bishop John Loughlin.
Students credited their teachers for helping them elevate their skills.
“Originally I didn’t think I was going to be in the band,” said Adam Delinois, a junior. “Actually, my first day coming to school my freshman year, I came down to the band room and asked one of the teachers if I could join. So, they put me on trombone.”
Mercedez McCray, also a junior, plays the alto saxophone. She agreed that the teachers thoroughly prepared the band for the festival.
“It was really nerve-wracking, but I was excited to be there,” Mercedez said. “I wanted to sound well, and I was really grateful for my teachers and my band directors, because they really made sure that we knew our music.”
Myles Bryant, a senior who plays trumpet, said the staff and faculty are like “a second family.”
“I wish anyone who would come to this school could get to know the staff,” he said. “They’re great people. They’re very supportive.
“And I personally feel like without them, I wouldn’t have been able to do as well as I did on Saturday.”
