Calvary students play Carnegie Hall

WARWICK-It took lots of practice for music students at Calvary Christian Academy to make it to Carnegie Hall but they did just that last week as two busloads of students, parents, grandparents, and siblings made their way to the famed music hall in Manhattan. The children, in grades four through seven, practiced their recorders right up until the time they pulled up to the front of the hall on 57th Street. Inside, the history of Carnegie was not lost on them as they looked around in awe of the building and those who have played there. Five other schools participated in that same music session at the hall, but Calvary was the group that had the honor of playing on stage along with the St. Luke's Orchestra. Karen Ann Giammarino, who teaches music at Calvary, applied to play at Carnegie Hall as part of the LinkUP! Program, a program funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts through the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall. Students from the New York metropolitan area are selected to come to Carnegie Hall to perform as part of the concert In honor of the 20th anniversary of LinkUP!, which is part of the Isaac Stern Education Legacy, the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall presented 20 $1,000 awards, honoring schools that have demonstrated the highest level of creativity and commitment to music education. The award was established in 2001 to honor Phyllis Susen Barbash, director of education at Carnegie Hall from 1994 to 2001. Giammarino accepted one of those awards at a luncheon shortly after her students played at Carnegie Hall last Wednesday.