NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A middle-school brass band beat four high schools to win its fifth annual competition for school brass bands, according to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation.
The “Class Got Brass” competition victory brings Medard H. Nelson Charter School a gift certificate for $10,000 worth of instruments.
Nelson Charter won the beginners’ category - and $5,000 certificates - in 2014 and 2015. This year, director Johnnie Van Buren II took a chance and entered the band in the advanced category, the foundation said in a news release. The division’s last two winners, Landry-Walker and St. Augustine high schools, took second and third, with prizes of $7,000 and $5,000 gift certificates.
“I knew that Landry-Walker and St. Augustine would sound good, so I told my kids that we needed to have a presentation with more entertainment,” Van Buren told the foundation. He had the band march with a fake coffin, in a nod to New Orleans’ jazz funeral tradition.
Van Buren said he will use this year’s prize to buy instruments and instruction books. He said he needs trombones and might buy a sousaphone, which can cost thousands of dollars.
He became Nelson Charter’s band director in 2012, and said he started a brass band to enter the contest, which gives a $750 gift certificate to every band that competes.
“We were hurting for money,” Van Buren recalled. “To get $750 just for showing up and participating, you can’t beat that.”
Nelson Charter first competed in 2013.
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