Band preparing for holiday performances
Municipal musical group has a busy schedule
in the coming month
By Sherry conohan
Staff Writer

Eatontown Memorial School eighth-grader Joshua Staudinger works on perfecting his trumpet with music teacher John Collins for the Eatontown municipal band’s upcoming holiday performances. The band will play at a reception at the Eatontown Community Center after the tree lighting at borough hall at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 8.

EATONTOWN — It may only be Thanksgiving, but it sure sounds a lot like Christmas at the Memorial School.

On Monday nights the Eatontown Municipal Band has been rehearsing its repertoire of Christmas songs for the performances it will make over the holidays in the school’s music room.

John J. Collins, the music teacher at the Memorial School and the band’s founder and director, said the program this year features a number of interesting arrangements of traditional Christmas and Hanukkah and secular music.

"It’s a nice blend, and the tunes will be familiar to the audience, but the arrangements keep the tunes fresh and interesting," he said. "One is called a Christmas concerto, traditionally played by a solo instrument with the band in the background. But in ours, the band plays the accompaniment with solo parts at a very advanced level for some of our more advanced players to perform."

"It gives the people in the band who are more advanced an opportunity to display their talent — to strut their stuff, so to speak," he added.

Now two years old, the Eatontown Municipal Band is a mix of adults and students and of musical abilities. The instruments spotlighted in the concerto are the flute, clarinet, trumpet and alto saxophone.

"Just as we have all different ages in the band, we have all different levels of playing ability," Collins observed. "We’re constantly trying to accommodate everybody’s needs and abilities. I think we’ve been pretty successful."

The band will debut its program for borough residents Sunday, Dec. 8, when it will play at the reception at the Community Center on Broad Street after the Christmas tree lighting at Borough Hall. Other performances include at Boscov’s in Monmouth Mall, at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 16 at the second floor entrance to the store, and at the Festival of Trees at the Sheraton Eatontown Hotel.

The Memorial School Choir, which Collins also directs, will be performing at the actual tree lighting and at the Festival of Trees. It also will make appearances at the Meadowbrook senior residence, the Gateway Care Center, and before the Eatontown Woman’s Club.

In addition, the Eatontown Choraliers, directed by Kathy Jacobs, will sing at the tree-lighting ceremony.

Collins, who also is a borough councilman, said the band has stabilized at about 25 members. New members include Joshua Staudinger, an eighth-grader at the Memorial School, who Collins calls "a little prodigy" because he can play every instrument in the band.

"There is no instrument that this young man does not play, and plays well," he said. "It’s a source of amusement for the band as to which instrument he will play at a practice session. Trumpet is his first instrument, but he also plays the clarinet, bells, flute, baritone horn, everything."

Josh also sings in the Memorial School Choir, and that led him to the band. Collins said when Josh was singing with the choir at the Festival of Trees last year, he suggested he stay around and listen to the band.

"He liked it, and I invited him to join us after that," Collins said.

Josh was playing trumpet a week ago at the band’s practice session. He said he taught himself how to play it and the other instruments.

"I began on the piano," he explained.

Also new to the band this year are a brother and sister, both clarinetists and both students at the Memorial School — William and Aerin Kim. William is an eighth-grader and Aerin in seventh grade.

"They’ve been speaking English for less than a year. They’re Korean," Collins noted. "When I met them, neither spoke English. Josh served as interpreter for them, because he speaks Korean, until they picked up on English."

But just as there have been new arrivals in the band, there also have been departures.

"One of our trombone players just moved to France," Collins said. "I would love to replace him. I’m also looking for flutes, which we need pretty badly, and we could use more saxophones.

"We lost another one, who moved to Florida, one of the trumpets," he added.

Some of the band members play in other bands, as well. Trombonist Rudy Schellenberger, of Colts Neck, plays in three bands. In addition to the Eatontown Municipal Band, he plays in the Rumson-Fair Haven band and a new band just formed in Colts Neck two months ago.

"So, I’m getting plenty of practice," he said.

Schellenberger said he began on the trombone in high school and played in the Army Air Corps and in college. Then for 50 years he didn’t play in a band until retiring.

"I retired three years ago," he said, "and this gives me something to do."