Copley Choir and Band Head for New York

music students are traveling to New York City and their three days in the Big Apple promise to be a whirlwind of activity.

The 230 students, including 140 band and 90 choir members, will depart from Copley High School by bus on March 30 for the trip that’s likely to be a highlight of their high school years.

Michael Foster, director of bands, said the music programs generally plan joint trips every two years to expose students to cultural experiences and simply to allow students to “look beyond our own world of Copley, Ohio.”

Previous trips have been to Disney World, New York and Hollywood.

This trip will include music clinics with nationally known conductors, the opportunity to see a Broadway musical and meet members of its cast, and free time to explore the city with chaperones.

The students and 30 chaperones will arrive in New York early Thursday morning.

“We will have breakfast at the crack of dawn and then go to the Today Show,” said Foster. After perhaps getting a glimpse of the show’s anchors,  or getting on camera themselves, the students will visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Radio City Music Hall.

They will have some free time in midtown Manhattan, followed by a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and dinner in Little Italy.

The students will begin Friday with a ferry boat ride from their New Jersey hotel to Liberty Island and Ellis Island, the first stop for millions of immigrants entering the United States.

They will have free time to explore Chinatown and Little Italy, and other neighborhoods in lower Manhattan before meeting for dinner at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.

“This dinner will be very exciting because cast members from the Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, will be joining us,” said Foster. “The students will be able to ask them questions and learn what it’s like to be in a Broadway musical.”

After dinner, it’s onto the Al Hirschfeld Theatre to see the show. How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, which stars Daniel Radcliffe, best known as Harry Potter in the film adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s best-selling book series. In his first Broadway musical, Radcliffe plays J. Pierrepont Finch, a wily window washer aiming for the top of the corporate ladder.

The students will discuss the musical, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary and has previously won Tony Awards, in class before the trip.  

They will begin Saturday, their final day in New York, with a bus tour of the city and learn interesting facts as they travel through New York’s distinctive neighborhoods and make a few stops, such as in Central Park, for photo opportunities.

Following lunch at Grand Central Station, they will spend the afternoon in their music clinics.

After a trip to the top of Rockefeller Center, called “Top of the Rock,” which offers a panoramic view of the city, they will have dinner and depart for home.

Foster, who works closely with choir director Basil Kochan and assistant band director Vicki Smith, estimates that each year only a few of the hundreds of graduates of Copley’s band and choir programs go onto major in music in college and pursue professional careers in the performing arts.

So the goal is to encourage all of their students to become lifelong supporters of the arts.

“Our hope is that the kids will see all of these places they see on TV -- the media outlets, the theaters, the stages -- and realize that while it looks magical, it’s not really magical at all,” said Foster. “It’s really a lot of skilled people who make all that mystery and magic happen. And we only have it because people buy tickets and watch it.”