“The goal was to expose my students to what a high school band and junior high band was like,” said Jessica Clark, the elementary music teacher at Mackinac Island Public School. With no band of its own, Mrs. Clark said the performance by Engadine students allowed Island youngsters to see a real school band in action.

“The kids really enjoyed it,” she said.

Mackinac Island’s musical instrument inventory consists of recorders, small percussion instruments, and xylophones.

Engadine has 19 members in junior high band and 18 members in high school band and both bands are led by Jeremiah Clark, who is Mrs. Clark’s husband. Their performances on the Island were in front of the entire school, with the junior high band playing an overture, a rock piece, and a multi-movement suite and the high school band performing a piece about a steamboat race, a selection from “Phantom of the Opera,” and a march.

For the Engadine students, said Mr. Clark, the trip to Mackinac Island was an opportunity to show off their musical talents and a chance to explore the Island. It was, he said, “the perfect day trip for us. Trying to make trips both fun and educational is very rewarding.”

Mr. Clark said his students performed their spring concert at Engadine Monday, May 16, and the trip exploring the Island offered his students a reward for a job well done.

This was the Engadine band students’ first trip to Mackinac Island Public School, he said, and they “had a wonderful time at the school” and were most impressed with the school lunch program.

As for the Mackinac Island students, Mr. Clark said, “The younger kids were definitely fired up about it.”

Mrs. Clark said she has received a grant from the Mackinac Island Community Foundation that will allow her to implement a summer band program at the school this year, tailored to students from fourth through seventh grades. Having the Engadine bands play for her students was an opportunity to “start getting kids exposed to what their opportunities might be,” she said.

Mrs. Clark said she hopes her students realized, when they saw the Engadine bands play, that “even with a small group, you can still have a successful band.”

(Photo courtesy of Jessica Clark)