Mission Statement
The Solvay music staff is committed to nurturing a positive learning environment that cultivates creativity and offers opportunities to discover, perform and learn about the language of music. Music education will provide our students with the means to understand, communicate, and express themselves with this unique language that reflects the diversity of our country and the world’s multicultural society. This will produce students who have a deeper understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of music and its unique potential to enrich their lives.
A Message from the Director and Band President...
Welcome and thank you for visiting the Solvay High School Band website! We hope you find this website not only informative but also helpful in supporting the success of our student musicians.
Instrumental music performance is an exciting experience which will last a lifetime. The intense concentration and discipline required to perform in band is the very kind of training that produces success in every field.
The Solvay High School Band has a long tradition of musical excellence and is known throughout the region for student accomplishment. This outstanding reputation was earned by the dedication and efforts of past band members. All current band members have the responsibility to uphold this tradition.
Let us all work together to help our students achieve this goal. We want to thank everyone, including our superintendent, administrators, school board, parents and community members for supporting the students in our instrumental music program. Best Regards,
John Spillett Kristen Colelli
Band Director Band President
About Us
Concert Band - The Solvay High School Concert Band has established itself as one of the finest high school bands in Onondaga County. Besides performing at a high artistic level at school concerts, each year the band participates in educational festivals and performance field trips. They have consistently achieved gold ratings at NYSSMA major organization festivals and gold ratings and first place rankings at festivals organized by Heritage Festivals and Fiesta-Val. The group performs three concerts annually: The winter concert, the all district concert, and the spring concert.
Jazz Combo - The Solvay High School Jazz Combo has established itself as one of the finest high school jazz ensembles in New York State. Besides performing at a high artistic level at school concerts, each year the band participates in educational jazz festivals. The group has performed with legendary jazz musicians and world-renowned jazz educators including: Ed Shaugnessy, Clark Terry, Chris Vadala, Bobby Watson, Byron Stripling, Houston Person, Fred Sturm, Joe Riposo, Steve Brown, Mike Dubaniewicz and Rich Thompson. The combo has also successfully performed at Syracuse JazzFest in 1999, 2000, 2003 and 2006.
Jazz Combo is a comprehensive, performance-oriented course based on experiential learning that incorporates ear training, jazz theory, jazz history, jazz improvisation, basic compositional techniques, and the concept of hemisphericity. This is an advanced course equivalent to college-level instruction and one of few such courses in the United States. Students in this course have performed at over forty IAJE-sponsored jazz festivals and have consistently achieved gold ratings, section awards, individual talent citations, music scholarships, and have gone on to professional music careers.