Dress Rehearsal: The Making of a PHS Revue

The Thursday afternoon rehearsal for 's a cappella revue, , was meant to be a dress rehearsal, but only about half the kids got the memo. Choir director and choreographer Joe Piazza is not happy.

“If you are not dressed, you did not listen. If you're not dressed today, you will be dressed tomorrow.”

They will have just one more chance to rehearse before their Friday performance kicks off five days of music at the Alan Harvey Auditorium.

Members of three a cappella groups, the symphonic band and the jazz band have been gearing up for a week which includes four performances of the this weekend, the on Monday night and the on Tuesday.

Jan D'Annunzio is the music administrator for the school district and, in her own words, gets to “play the good witch” for the young performers. Besides calming nerves and being the carrot to Piazza's stick, she handles tasks ranging from costume planning, to financial details, to booking trips. Over her 11 years on the job, those trips have included visits Europe and China.

Just last February, 58 students from the a cappella classes performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City, while the symphonic band, orchestra and jazz band participated in the Heritage Festival in Las Vegas. The symphonic band and orchestra brought home Gold honors from Nevada. A High Silver award for the jazz band in Las Vegas came a surprise given, since the group had only been a part of the school curriculum for 10 weeks before the event.

“It's been a huge success. We were blown away by it,” says D'Annunzio of the award. And whether it was the NBC Studios in the Big Apple or Cirque du Soleil in Vegas, the kids got to mix in a little fun as well.

While D'Annunzio doesn't choose the repertoire, she has a college minor in music and says, “I have enough music background to be dangerous, but not enough to be able to teach.” The faculty finds the musical direction for the performances, but it's D'Annunzio they consult on the annual senior awards. Unlike others in the department, she sees all the musical groups in action.

D'Annunzio says she's had the pleasure of seeing some students go on to careers in music. One such graduate recently came back to his alma mater for a special performance with his professional trio. Wayne Lee, class of 2001, played violin in the Piedmont High orchestra, went on to study at Julliard and became a concertmaster of the orchestra there. These days he performs professionally all over the world with the Manhattan Piano Trio. Their April show at the Alan Harvey Theater, D'Annunzio says, “was a roaring success. [Lee] is fantastically good and it was magical to hear him.”

While not all students go on to musical careers, many graduates do major in music or the performing arts in college. Take Zach Piser, a senior in the chamber choir: he is one round away from a $10,000 scholarship and this fall he will be join the theater program at Northwestern University. He hopes to add a musical theater minor after his freshman year. Add to that a biology major and hopes of becoming a doctor or a veterinarian, and you've got one ambitious teen.

“It's going to be busy,” Piser says. The Northwestern musical theater program "is brilliant. I'm definitely pursuing it. It may be a little bit more cutthroat, but I think that's the best reality check for somebody like me who wants to go into this business. I participated in acting and a capella at Piedmont all four years and I love it.”

Piser will perform the Johnny Mercer standard "Skylark" and several other pieces in this weekend's show.

Every year the a cappella singers put on a fundraiser gala to cover the high costs of producing a costumed production like Come Fly With Me. This year the gala will be at the home of Andrea Swenson, president of CHIME, the community organization that supports music programs in Piedmont schools.

As the almost dress rehearsal got off to a start, Piazza impressed one last thought on his students,:“You are on. Your voices are up. You are to pretend there is an audience out there.”

The students settle down and listen. “It's a little shaky, but they'll get it,” D'Annunzio assures me before being running off to take care of another crucial detail.