Emily Madigan on clarinet and Emily Menges on bassoon concentrate on their performance in the EASTmeets WEST 8 Members of the Garden City Eighth-Grade Band took part in a cross-county music festival with the Finley Middle School Eighth-Grade Band from Huntington. The musicians from Garden City, under the direction of Mrs. Martha Boonshaft, and Finley Middle School, under the direction of Ms. Gina Pellettiere, prepared a full program of music.

On March 1, Garden City's band traveled to Huntington High School for a combined two-hour rehearsal. The evening started with a performance by the Garden City Eighth-Grade Band of Gary Gilroy's "The Sphinx" for Finley. The two bands then combined, under the direction of internationally renowned composer and Long Island resident, Mr. Carl Strommen. Mr. Strommen spent most of the next two hours rehearsing the combined 150-piece ensemble on three of his own compositions. During the break in rehearsing, the trumpet sections from both bands combined to play an explosive Spanish trumpet ensemble piece entitled "Malaguena." The students from both bands received shirts with a commemorative logo on the back showing both schools' mascots with instruments designed by the Huntington band. They were to be worn in the concert that was snowed out.

Martha Boonshaft, director of Garden City Middle School's 8 Exchange programs offer so much to the children. Within the confines of a short two-day festival, the student musicians learned to communicate stylistically with others their own age and to compare and contrast the musicality of their band with another outstanding ensemble. They learned another lesson in the universality of music as a language, being able to combine with the Finley Middle School Band and create a beautiful cohesive band sound in an extremely short period of time. The experience also gave all the students the exhilarating feeling of being in a large All-County band. The members of the Garden City Middle School Eighth-Grade Band and Mrs. Boonshaft would like to thank Central Administration and the administration of the Middle School for their unending support of programs like these.

th Grade Exchange Concert between Garden City Middle School's 8 th-grade band and Finley Middle School's 8 th grade band

th-Grade Band and Gina Pellettiere, director of Huntington's Finley Middle School Eighth-Grade band