The varsity football regular season starts next month, but the Mineola High School marching band is already getting close to mid season form, having begun practicing in May and undergoing its most intensive week of practice upstate this week.
“That’s where the magic happens,” said Frank Mauriello, who is in his rookie season as the band’s director.
Mauriello has been with the band as one of its music instructors for the past seven years. So he’s familiar with the drill that the band is engaged in during its week-long camp at Camp Kindering in Hopewell Junction, NY.
Wake-up call is at 7 a.m. with breakfast at 7:30 followed by practice until lunch time. Then practice resumes until 6 p.m. There are breaks during the morning and afternoon practice sessions, time to cool off in the pool between hours spent marching in the summer sun.
The band spends the week learning the routines it will be using in providing accompaniment at football games and in competition.
“Camp is nice. We get to get away and put our show together,” Mauriello said.
There are three musical segments in this year’s show, approximately 240 measures of music that the band members are expected to have memorized before camp begins.
Mauriello made an unusual choice in selecting “Nessun Dorma,” the theme of an aria from Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Turandot,” as one of three pieces the band will perform.
It will accompany a scenario dubbed “The Heist,” the theft of a crown of fake diamonds and feathers, that members of the band’s color guard will pull off during the seven-minute show.
“Nessun Dorma” (“None Shall Sleep”) is intended as a crowning irony as accompaniment.
After placing third in statewide competition in the Small School 2 category last year, Mineola’s marching band is stepping up this year as the only Long Island high school in Small School 1 competition – the highest level of competition in the small school classification.
“We have a whole new set of challenges, and we’ll embrace those challenges,” Mauriello said.
The veteran band members he’ll direct – all but 25 of the 105 students participating – sounded ready as they prepared for camp last week.
“It’s awesome. It raises the bar and we have to do a lot better than we did last year,” said Eric Timlin, a junior in his first year as a drumline co-captain.
Timlin has gone from toting the bass drum in his freshman year to the tenor quad drums – an arrangement of four drums – and he was looking ahead to the week of marching to the beat of those drums with mixed feelings.
“It’s like a love-hate relationship. But you make a lot of friends,” he said.
For junior flutist Caroline Navarra, the marching band has become “like a family away from my family.”
Navarra, who’s been playing flute since third grade, said the band members understand the hard work of practicing this week will pay off during the season’s competitions. And she finds the experience of competition a thrilling one.
“I like the feeling. You walk onto the field for the first competition of the year and it’s just a rush of feeling,” she said.
Senior alto saxophonist Joe Lao has been in the band since his freshman year. Lao plays in the high school concert band and sings in the a capella chorus, and said he enjoys the camaraderie of the marching band – and the results.
“It’s a lot of hard work. I just like putting on a show. It’s good to know you did a good job,” Lao said.
Junior Jill Mullane, who has migrated to the marimba since playing cello in grade school, said that attending camp was a great way to make friends when she was entering the high school.
“Everyone becomes like a family,” said Mullane, whose twin brother Tommy plays the quads as drumline co-captain.
Tara Kubat, one of three color guard co-captains, said the feeling of accomplishment is a big motivator.
“We have a real pride in what we do,”
While some band members sounded a bit nervous about moving up in classification this year, their band director said he’s not anxious about the change.
“I have a blast. These are all great kids. They enjoy being here and that’s the ultimate reward,” Mauriello said. “I don’t feel the pressure.”
