After months of hard work and over a year of preparation BVNW’s Chorale choir has been planning their trip to New York to preform at Carnegie hall. To aid Chorale in their preparation, Julliard music director and organist with the New York Philharmonic Kent Tritle flew in from New York to listen to and perfect the choir.

“Oh man! I love this chorale, individually and collectively,” Tritle said. “These are really fabulous people. [They have] open spirits, open minds and open hearts.”

When Tritle arrived, the choir was so well prepared he said. They rehearsed for about four hours, Tritle said, and did not show any attention lag and were focused the whole time. Tritle said it was clear they were used to concentrating and that there was a definite standard.

“[Just] to be in a room without the distraction of your cell phone or your iPad, or whatever,” Tritle said. “Technology is great and I am sure it is used in education here a lot. But there is something about people making sound and studying that interactive experience for a period of time, that stops time.”

Tritle said he listened to Chorale sing a piece sung in previous concerts and was speechless, he said. Tritle said he was moved just listening to them preform.

Sophomore Sarah Gillen said she was blessed to be conducted by Tritle and to hear the things Chorale needed to work on and what they were doing well.

“It was a new experience, he had a different way of teaching and conducting,” Gillen said. “It was hard to read some of the signs he was giving but it was an experience that I will probably never get the chance to have again. You could tell by his facial expressions that he was impressed with us high school students.”

Gillen said, she is excited for New York and cannot wait to work with Tritle one last time. Along with Gillen, junior Josh Bey said he is very excited for New York and even more so after working with Tritle.

“He was like a big ball of energy running around,” Bey said. “He had a lot of cool stories he told us and he [would tell] us to imagine the singing throughout these stories. I am really excited to see him again.”

Bey said, Tritle had changed his perspective and the way he looks at the music and the way he sings it. Tritle said this was his first high school visit and he will be visiting two other schools, one in Texas and one in New Jersey.

“We will create a unity out of the experience and we will all come together in New York,” Tritle said. “I’m really grateful for Carnegie hall for putting this together it is a really great thing for these programs to have a light shown on them and that is defiantly what will be happening at Carnegie hall.”