Sala returns home with U.S. Navy BandDate: 2/25/2016 WILBRAHAM – Christopher Sala, chief musician of the United States Navy Band and a 1990 graduate of Minnechaug High School, is returning home to Western Massachusetts during the band’s 2016 tour.
Sala, who joined the Navy Band in 2001, told Reminder Publications he has fond memories of his formative years attending the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District.
“Both my [high school] band director, Charles Beeler, and my choral director, Ray Drury, were very encouraging to me becoming a musician,” he noted. “I was given opportunities to solo with the high school band. And they both introduced me to a wide variety of music that prepared me well for college and as a military bandsman.”
He said playing in the band was the favorite part of his school days.
“I also loved practicing my instrument, which is not always the case with someone learning an instrument,” Sala explained. “I enjoyed the challenges of playing the trumpet. I knew from the age of 12 that I wanted to play music for a living and I knew that the military bands are an amazing opportunity to do that and serve my country at the same time.”
The Navy Concert Band will perform on March 5 at Springfield Symphony Hall at 7 p.m. and March 6 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Fine Arts Center at 2 p.m. All Navy Band performances are free and open to the public.
Sala said he is excited to perform in Springfield.
“My parents moved away in 2002 to Maryland to be closer to my family, so it’s been a long time since I’ve been back,” he noted. “I can’t wait to perform my solo in Springfield Symphony Hall. I used to perform and rehearse there with the Springfield Young Person’s Symphony when I was in high school.”
The Navy Band will play 23 concerts across five states, which include New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, he added.
“We travel with 57 musicians, one conductor, one audio engineer and one public affairs officer,” Sala said. “We will cover more than 2,700 miles, traveling about 108 miles each day by bus.”
He continued, “We are playing orchestral transcriptions of works by [Dmitri] Shostakovich, [Paul] Hindemith, [Antonín] Dvorak, and [Nikolai] Rimsky-Korsakoff as well as Sousa marches, patriotic music and Broadway hits. I will be a featured soloist, every other night, performing a cornet solo by Jean Baptiste Arban called ‘Fantasie Brillante.’ I will be performing it when we play in Springfield.”
Sala said the Navy Band rehearses every day for two hours during the two weeks leading up to the tour.
“Most of the music we have all performed regularly,” he explained. “It just takes two weeks to really polish it up.”
He said the Navy Band predominately hires musicians directly from the civilian world.
“When there is a vacancy, there is an audition to fill that spot,” Sala explained. “You have to audition first in order to come to the band in Washington DC. I took the audition as a civilian and once I was offered a spot, I had to enlist and go to basic training.”
He continued, “A Navy chief is a huge milestone in a sailor’s career. To make chief, you have to prove that you are a valuable and respected leader of other sailors. It is a long road to be advanced to chief petty officer. In the band, chief musicians are expected to be an outstanding musical leader and mentor to the other junior sailors of our command. It was a huge honor to be promoted to chief four years ago.”
Sala earned a bachelor’s degree in music education and trumpet performance from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, in 1994 and a master’s degree in music from Florida State University in 1996.
Sala has won numerous music awards, including first place in the 1996 International Trumpet Guild Solo Competition and second place winner of the 1997 National Trumpet Competition. He was also a semi-finalist in the Brandt Competition in Russian and the Maurice André Competition in Paris.
Sala said he plays trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, and arranges music for the Navy Band Brass Quintet – a small chamber ensemble that is part of the Navy Band – for which he also serves as lead musician.
He added jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis served as a model for his sound as a young player and inspired him to pursue a music career. Sala is also a fan of the music of Igor Stravinsky and Dmitri Shostakovich.
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