Gateway program lets students focus on music

Aiken High Band Director Ryan Westberry was pushing his ensemble band students through a difficult piece at the Gateway summer enrichment arts program on Tuesday.

Much to the amusement of the middle and high school students, Westberry alternately shrieked and cajoled and lectured and praised.

"He's strict and he's crazy, too, but he really knows what he's talking about," said a smiling Katie Dyches, a rising junior at North Augusta High and French horn player. "This experience is really fun. You get to come here and focus on your area. It's a great way to spend your summer."

Located at Kennedy Middle School, Gateway provides instrumental and choral music, dance, drama and visual arts for elementary, middle and high school students. The instrumental program offers classes in percussion, band, strings and ensemble. The goals have evolved this year, said instructor David Culp, the strings program director at Schofield Middle School.

"We're trying to incorporate instruction as well as performance," he said. "In every class, there's a focus on the academic part of music, such as theory and technique. We also have a lot of smaller groups, with master classes in each area, including brass and percussion."

Westberry's late-morning band class included several strings players, with violins, for example, taking on some of the flute parts. On Tuesday, They were working on "Quad City Stomp" by Michael Sweeney.

"We've got an oboe player, Jessica Key, from Kennedy Middle School with a lot of solos," Westberry said. "It's a tremendously mature piece for her, a big step. We've got more people in music this year, which is exciting. We're expanding the harmonic language and playing a style of music they're not accustomed to."

He laughed about his over-the-top rehearsal persona.

"We try to be productive and also have fun," said Westberry. "If you can't enjoy it, what good is it."

The elementary students will have a showcase performance at Kennedy Tuesday, June 28. The middle and high school performance is scheduled for Thursday, June 7. With large crowds expected at both concerts in the school gym, Culp suggested that parents and other guests provide their own lawn chairs.