The Huntington High School Blue Devil marching band is preparing for what it expects to be one of its best years ever, with talented musicians and color guard members, skilled professional staff members and a wildly supportive parent association that simply cannot be matched.
The Band Parent Association’s executive committee consists of Matthew Stanley (president), Robert Conte (vice president/color guard liaison), Kim Gooding (co-treasurer), Debbie Knowles (co-treasurer), Banassa Jean-Gilles (recording secretary/co-head chaperone) and Dominque Stanley (corresponding secretary/list-keeper, band news).
Members at-large include Jack Malone (co-head roadie), Ruth Musso (co-head roadie), Adam Levine (co-head roadie), Leslie Glascock (co-head chaperone), Jen Spina (co-fundraising chair, sign-up and volunteer coordination), Nancy Levine (merchandise chair), Debbie Ciccone (assistant merchandise chair), Peggy Low (public relations), Ivy Soric (Finley liaison), Darin Reed (historian/archivist), Nevin Soric (website administrator), Tom Holly, Sandi Furman, Tracy Tucker and Leslie Kilgour.
Jennifer LaVertu is the band’s uniform coordinator and Karen Wong is the assistant uniform coordinator.
Band’s Student Leadership is Exceptional
Jennifer Low, Michael Reed and Robert Jean-Gilles will serve as the Blue Devils’ drum majors. Andrew Knowles is set to be the field major.
The band’s student leadership also includes flute section leaders Molly Kessler and Natalie Ciccone; clarinet section leaders Neil Jean-Baptiste and Catherine McCooey; alto sax section leader Carrie Kilgour; low brass section leaders Zubair Ali and Michael Mathews; mello section leader Aileen Lopez; trumpet section leaders Nathan Musso and Jose Suarez and tenor sax/baritone sax leader Miles Tierney.
Nathan Musso will serve as the brass captain with Neil Jean-Baptiste as the woodwind captain. Oskar Kilgour has been named the battery captain. Peyton Kalb and Natalie Furman will lead the pit section. Kyra DeSalvo and Jasmine Clark will be the color guard captains.
2019 Field Show is “Disruption”
The 2019 field show is titled “Disruption.” Musical selections will include Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain and Hans Zimmer’s The Kraken, which was popularized in Pirates of the Caribbean.
The show will feature the band playing Swan Lake, only to be “disrupted” and to veer off to Night on Bald Mountain before returning to Swan Lake before being disrupted again toward The Kraken before returning once more to Swan Lake.
Blue Devil Band History
Huntington High School music teacher James Cloyd Doty organized the first band in 1934. It was open to boys and girls in all four classes, according to the 1936 edition of The Huntingtonian, the high school yearbook. “Although newly organized, this group has worked very hard and with the cooperation of the student body, the band members have received blue and white uniforms,” states the yearbook. “They gave a new feeling of school spirit to all of the occasions at which they appeared this year.”
The Blue Devil band is still going strong today; 85 years after its founding.
Competitive Schedule for 2019
The band’s regular season schedule includes the following “local” competitions:
Sunday, September 15 at Brentwood High School
Saturday, September 22 at Copiague High School
Saturday, September 28 at Malverne High School
Sunday, October 6 at Huntington High School (Home Show)
Saturday, October 12 at Sachem High School
Sunday, October 13 at Arlington High School
Saturday, October 19 at Mineola High School
The New York State Field Band Conference Championships are scheduled for Saturday-Sunday, October 26-27 at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse.