Next Thursday, a quartet of GHS Musicians will show the Lamplight Jazz Cabaret at the Galena Center for the Arts, where they will perform jazz standards in an hour-long concert beginning at 7:00 p.m. General admission is $10, cash only.
The quartet, which consists of Liliana Asta ‘26, Justin Lin ‘28, Macklan Murphy ‘27, and Luna Pham ‘27, has been rehearsing ever since the start of the school year, when they and Stage Manager Jim Asta expressed interest in performing jazz for an audience in a cabaret-style setting.
“My favorite part of rehearsing is the moments when everything just comes together and we finally figure out a tricky part of a song,” explains Liliana, who sings in the Cabaret. She also plays trombone during the concert, in songs that require a brass solo. She and bassist/bassoonist Pham were recently selected to perform at the Illinois Music Education Association State Music Festival, where the former will be in the Honors Vocal Jazz ensemble and the latter will play for the All-State Orchestra.
Despite juggling multiple auditions, other ensemble work, and heavy extracurricular loads, the acclaimed ensemble remains more ready than ever to perform these momentous jazz compositions. In the words of Murphy, the percussionist, “I mainly listened to the songs a whole bunch in order to learn them.” Lin, who plays the piano and arranged all of the songs, explained that “simply writing parts for all the songs gave me a good idea of what to play already.”
Technical difficulties were also prevalent in rehearsals without Jim’s assistance. As Liliana recalled, “There was a time when we restarted the speakers with the master volume all the way up, which destroyed everyone’s eardrums within a ten mile radius.” When asked which difficulties they went through, every member of the quartet unanimously agreed that it was this one.
Notwithstanding the immense challenge the young musicians have ahead of them, they are still making steady progress on all the songs in preparation for their concert on Thursday evening. The dedicated ensemble looks forward to sharing the results of months of rehearsing jazz to their community.
