Blue Devil Marching Band Announces 2023 Leadership & Show

The colorful pageantry and awesome sights and sounds of the Huntington High School Blue Devil marching band are set to impress once again during next fall’s competitive season. If the student-musician’s enthusiasm is an accurate measure the band will challenge for the New York State Field Band Conference championship.

Set to enter its 90th year, the band will be directed by Huntington High School music teacher Andre E. Rizzuto, who will be assisted by Patrick Neary and Mallory Martilla. The remainder of the professional staff will be announced soon.

“We are more thrilled to be back for another great season with the Huntington Blue Devil marching band,” Mr. Rizzuto said. “I am extremely excited for this upcoming year just to be back with the band with a fantastic show and a new look with the new uniforms that we will be going out with in the 2023 season.

The Blue Devils’ student leadership for the 2023 competitive has been put in place. It includes many of the top musicians in the high school.

Lily Wasoski, Jack Semelsberger and Kayla Murillo will serve as the Blue Devils’ drum majors. It’s a group of remarkably talented teenagers.

The band’s student leadership also includes flute section leaders Jayden Feliciano and Donna Lazo; clarinet section leaders Charlie Michaelian and Felicity George; alto sax section leader Abby Schueller; trumpet section leaders Megan Lewis and Jayden Hoff Isavelle; mellophone section leader Aidan Geller; pit section leaders Katherine Estrada and Sonia Acevedo; low brass/low woodwind section leader Eli Soric; battery section leader Ben Edgar-McNerney.

Dana Saramago will serve as the brass captain with Eli Soric as the woodwind captain. Diana Diaz Portillo, Deanna Elvir and Toni Reyes-Sorto will be the color guard captains.

“Our open house is on May 4 from 6-9 p.m. at Huntington High School,” Mr. Rizzuto said. “All high school and middle school students are more than welcome to come down and check out the Huntington Blue Devil marching band and hopefully choose to become part of this wonderful family!”

The 2023 field show is titled “Children of Zeus.” Next fall’s show will travel back to Ancient Greece and explore the gods and goddesses they worshiped. Beginning with Zeus, the God of the Sky, weather, fate and law; known more commonly to the people of Greece as the King of the Gods. The show will then focus on Athena, the Goddess of Warcraft and Wisdom. Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. Hephaestus, the God of Fire, Smiths, Craftsman and Metal Working and Hermes, the God of Travelers and Guiding Souls. These gods and goddesses are direct children of Zeus and will highlight the show through each of their distinct traits.

The new show’s musical catalog includes Bruckner Symphony No. 8 by Anton Bruckner; Ghosts of the Old Year by James David; Make You Feel My Love by Adele and Verdi’s Requiem: “Dies Irae” and original compositions written by Dr. Jason Giachetti and Rich Guillen.

“We hope that you will join us over the course of this upcoming season to see our wonderful production become a reality,” Mr. Rizzuto said.

Huntington High School music teacher James Cloyd Doty organized the first marching 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.”

Nine decades after its founding, the Blue Devil band is still a force to be reckoned with and the new set of student leaders intend to keep Huntington’s incredible tradition going strong.

Current band members are already working on the music associated with next fall’s field show.