BC students organize, promote and play charity event with international rock group
It’s not every day an internationally touring band stops by a high school to perform for students during their lunch period. It’s even rarer that they come back to town to play a show organized, promoted and supported by those same kids.
Yet that’s exactly what’s happened at Bethlehem Central High School with the band Deluka, which is returning to the Albany area on Friday, April 22, for a charity show at The Egg. Three bands of BC students will open for the group, which hails from the UK, with proceeds from the show going to the American Diabetes Association and the Japanese Red Cross.
For Deluka, The Egg is not the biggest venue it will play this year (they recently played the South By Southwest music festival in Texas) but they’re excited to collaborate with the students again after their March performance and Q and A sessions at the high school.
We’re really excited. We had such a good reaction from when we went in to the school, said Kris Kovacs, the group’s guitarist. `It was one of the better schools we’ve been in.`
About 75 BCHS students will either be playing the show, promoting it or working with The Egg’s staff to pull it off. This has given kids in two specialized classes some unique opportunities.
`It’s hands-on experience. They get to see what goes on behind the scenes,` said business teacher Anthony Malizia, who is teaching the business of music.
His students have been poring over seating charts, canvassing businesses for advertising and brainstorming ways to bring in publicity, including working with WEQX-FM. In other words, they’re directly engaged in the nitty gritty, not-so-fabulous aspects of the music biz. Most said they’re enjoying it.
As any promoter knows, publicity has a lot to do with filling seats. It’s fortunate, then, that practically across the hall from the business of music class is Joyce Jones’ ad design class, where students have been making posters for the show. They’re being hung around the high school, the town and at The Egg concourse.
The class’s work often sees the real world. Students recently created a logo for the Albany Rowing Center’s Ice Breaker Challenge 5K race and perennially design the Teal Ribbon Walk’s T-shirt. This project has been unique because of the volume of work and the subject matter, said student Jazminn Motley.
`I think it was more fun because it was towards our kind of audience,` she said.
Jones said these projects provide a great opportunity for the students to become acquainted with the realities of the design world.
`They can use their creativity but they also have to fit the specifications of the job,` she said.
Though the students are doing a lot of the heavy lifting, the concert is the brainchild of Assistant Principal Scott Landry. He organized the band’s March visit and reached back out to the group’s promoters with the idea of a charity show. The only date they could make it to town was April 22, when school is not session and facilities wouldn’t be available.
It was either go big or go home, Landry said, and the students have stepped up to make it happen.
`It’s amazing to see what these kids have done,` he said
The Egg doesn’t come cheap. Between rental and staffing the cost is around $2,000. The students are fundraising to offset some of that (the senior class has donated $300) so the greatest amount possible will go to charity.
Tickets for the show are on sale through The Egg’s website (theegg.org) and are $15 for students and $20 for adults. The BC bands Assortment of Crayons, J.A.M.P. And Wishful Endeavor will open for Deluka (the BCHS student paper `The Talon` described their music as `fun and tasty`). Businesses interested in advertising in the concert’s program should contact Malizia at 439-4921 ext. 25471.“
