Veterans High School band performed at Capitol

The wind ensemble and wind symphony bands from Veterans High School put on a performance outside of the Capitol building in Atlanta Tuesday.

“We had an opportunity to go play at the Capitol; Sen. Walker invited us,” said band director Jeremy Fermin. “A lot of people asked what’s the event or why we went, and frankly, the answer is because we can. Band is a year-round thing.”

Fermin said that most people don’t go home at night thinking about the band like he does, but band isn’t just for the Fourth of July or Christmas, he said. Band is all year long.

For the trip, the students played music from across Georgia, such as “Georgia’s on My Mind,” “Olympic Fanfare,” “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and Tara’s theme from “Gone with the Wind.”

“We did an armed services medley, and the ROTC cadets who are in the band presented the five flags of the armed services,” Fermin said.

Fermin said that he had seen other concert bands and jazz bands play at the Capitol, so he reached out to Sen. Larry Walker to see if he could have the Veterans bands play.

“They can’t have instruments inside the building due to a policy, so we played in Liberty Plaza right outside the building. It’s a new green space outside with a stage and places to sit,” Fermin said.

Fermin said he and the associate director of bands, Hannah Cavender, are both University of Georgia graduates, so they had the band play UGA music. He said the large G symbol from the university was still painted on the grass in the plaza from the national championships earlier. He said Cavender is a recent graduate and this is her first year teaching but that she has been integral to the band program.

The band had its picture taken with the governor and other members of the Legislature, and while outside, dignitaries such as Sen. Walker, Sen. John Kennedy, Rep. Shaw Blackmon and Rep. Buddy Hardin said a few words and watched the students perform.

“Sen. Walker posted some stuff on his Facebook page, too, so that was neat to be recognized by him,” Fermin said.

Approximately 96 students from the band performed at the Capitol. Fermin said they took charter buses up there, and the fee for the students went to both paying for the buses as well as a visit to the Georgia Aquarium.

“They definitely enjoyed it,” Fermin said. “So many of them mentioned they had never been to the Capitol.”

He said that because the Senate was not in session, the students got to see the Senate chamber on their tour of the building. After looking around, he said one student remarked that it must be an important room.

“I think, having the opportunity to take our music up there, they enjoyed that,” Fermin said. “They also wore tuxedos and dresses since it was professional and professional attire, and they liked walking around looking fancy.”

Although Fermin said he isn’t sure whether this will become an annual trip, if Walker or other state leaders invited them, the band would love to come back and play again.

With flutes, clarinets, oboes, bassoons, saxophones, French horns, trumpets, trombones, euphoniums, percussion instruments and sousaphones (tubas), the band made such an impression that several people stopped what they were doing to listen to the students play.

“Some of them (the songs) such as ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ were pulled from our Veterans Day concert and military appreciation, but some of them, like Olympic fanfare, they got only a couple weeks ago,” Fermin said. “They had to throw it together real fast, but they did a good job doing it.”

Fermin said he told the students that Veterans High School has some of the smartest and brightest pupils in Georgia, that they represented themselves well and that they should be proud of their performance.

“I’m proud of them, too. They played ‘Georgia on My Mind,’ and not many people can say they played the state song in the shadow of the Gold Dome,” Fermin said.

Coming up, the band will have its large group performance evaluation March 8 and 9 at Houston County High School. The bands will also have their spring concerts May 10 and May 11 in the Veterans High School auditorium. People can also hear the band play in a video posted on the Houston Home Journal Facebook Page.

If you would like to help support the band, Marco’s cards are available for $10 each, and businesses can sponsor the band. Call Veterans High School at 478-218-7537.

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