Castle Notes

Sharing Audition Stories - Part 2

6/23/2018

The audition stories continue to pour in. An example of some of the work to date is on display at http://mycastletreasures.com/ma-audition-stories.html. The final product, which is tentatively being called the M&A Audition Memory Book is taking shape. My goal is that within the next month, alumni, their families and all friends of M&A can share and relive these precious memories.

1970 Yearbook Staff

I’m presently collecting alumni memories from the latter decades that M&A was in existence. This being said, audition stories from the 1970's and the 1980's are being sought. All earlier classes are still welcome to forward their stories. All will be reviewed and then memorialized in the book.

1977

I’m seeking the answers to such questions as:

What prompted you to seek out M&A?
What happened during the actual audition and how did you feel?
How did you feel when you found out that you were accepted?

I would also be appreciative of any related additional experiences or photographs that you may wish to add.

Send all stories to [email protected]. Mention the year that you graduated and if you'd like a particular photo attached to your story, please forward it. If not, your graduation photo will be used.

1980 Senior Trip

I'm looking forward to adding your heart-warming story as a cornerstone of this even growing and shared project.

M&A4ever.
Lloyd A. Green

1972

12 Comments

Wanda Tanks Gregory

6/23/2018 08:59:14 pm

It was the year 1975, and I was coming out of junior high school in the Bronx and had decided I in no way wanted to attend my neighborhood school. I did not feel I was going to be successful with so much negativity plaguing my community at that time and let's just say I was misunderstood by many of my peers. I attended an all girl school and was placed in challenging academic class because of my high reading scores. Many of my friends that attended school with me started the process of interviewing for many of the alternative high schools in the city. I myself applied to several schools one of them being Music and Art. At the time I did not consider myself exceptional in music. Yes, I played trombone in my junior high school, but I did not have great passion for it. I considered myself a lover of music and dance and initially wanted to attend our sister school, The High School of the Performing Arts. I did audition for it and did not make the cut. I was scheduled to try out for Music and Art right after that audition and I was uncertain if I had want was needed to be accepted. I also went out on a limb to sing instead of play my trombone. To add further stress to my audition I chose Killing Me Softly, sung by Roberta Flack. If you know anything about that song it's not an easy one to sing. I remember arriving to the audition thinking why am I here and how do I get out. As memory serves I was lead to a classroom where I was asked to sing, which I nervously did and then performed vocal chords directed by the interviewer. After that I was told the audition was over and to await confirmation whether I would be accepted. Needless to say I was convinced I had bombed that audition. Who was to think I was going to be allowed into a school that was revered as one of the top schools in New York City. After a couple of weeks of not hearing whether I was accepted I began to accept that I wasn't going to attend Music and Art High School. I will never forget the day when I returned from school and my mother held in her hand a letter from The High School Of Music and Art. She waited for me so we could open it together. I was nervous so I told her to read it for me and to my sheer surprise I was accepted and would start my Freshman Year of 1976 in the prestige school of the Arts. I can not remember the exact words I used at that time to express my happiness but I now know it was probably one of astonishment!!! I am still proud to belong to a group of extraordinary, talented human begins. Many of my dearest and oldest friendships began with being accepted into The High School of Music and Art I have developed into a woman that sees the beauty and diversity in music, art and culture this wouldn't have happen if I hadn't attended M&A. This experience has enriched my life for that I am eternally grateful..

Lloyd Green link

6/24/2018 02:41:54 pm

Thanks Wanda. You're the class of 1979, right?

Wanda

6/25/2018 04:03:35 pm

Yes the class of 1979 and glad you felt what I experienced. 😊

6/24/2018 02:45:00 pm

Great story. I could feel your nervousness.

Linda Mendelowitz Alpert

6/24/2018 07:31:38 am

I always liked to express myself through art. When I was young I spent hours creating my own paper dolls, and drawing my own cartoons. I remember attending a special assembly at school in 7th or 8th grade where they gave a presentation about all the specialized high schools. They gave us handouts with instructions and deadlines for applying. I knew after that assembly I wanted to apply to Music and Art.
I needed a portfolio for the audition, so I gathered different samples of my art, and an older classmate showed me how to make a carrying case out of poster board and contact paper.
My older brother took me to the audition with my giant portfolio. We took a bus and two trains to get there from the Bronx. He waited for me in the school auditorium while I was brought to one of the art rooms with a bunch of other kids. I do not remember my parents being involved in the process at all which is not how things are done these days.
In the art room we were asked to do three timed drawings. I remember a live model and a still life. The last was something from our imagination. I never sketched from a live model before so in that sense the admission process was exciting, but for the most part I remember being scared and the room being very quiet. After the timed drawings I was interviewed by one of the teachers and asked a few questions. I was then reunited with my brother in the auditorium. I remember thinking it was a special place in a different world.
I felt so special when I learned I was accepted. My family was very proud of me. To this day it still amazes me that my very over protective mother was going to allow me to take a bus and two trains by myself to school each day but she knew it was the beginning of a broader life for me outside of the Bronx.

6/24/2018 02:49:04 pm

Wonderfully detailed story :)

What was the year of your graduating class?

Patricia Powers link

6/24/2018 01:50:42 pm

Class of 1968:
Art saved my life. And M&A was literally what made that possible. I have more than affectionate memories; I am inexpressibly grateful.
I have had one anchor from my earliest memories to this day, and that was my conviction that I was an artist and had no doubt about my path. My childhood was utter chaos. My inability to cope with it all caused me to lose my place at the incredible Hunter College Elementary School by 5th grade, and I was broken hearted and bored with school, but passionate about making art at every opportunity.

I had no doubt about where I had to go to high school. My grades were so-so, but my portfolio was really good. The interviewer asked me where else I had applied. "Just here." She was, I think, dismayed that I had no back up plan. It might have been that she remembered my brilliant eldest sister who had graduated 12 years before that made the difference, but I was accepted.

This was a place where I could excel at what I loved, and be with others of my kind. And it was also magical in so many ways, at an incredible time in history that made it all the more formative, enriching and exciting. I still hated and struggled with math, but such a small thing could hardly diminish my feeling that I was home at last. And what a blessing it was to have that incredible space outside where we were free to gather and stay.
It was still chaos at home. And in love. And in politics, and in being a teenager. My father died after a long battle with cancer about a month before graduation. I was 16, and was going to The School of Visual Arts in the fall. I had no heart to go to graduation, which I regret.

Less than a year later, while at SVA, my mother died. I became an emancipated minor in Manhattan. I was studying with amazing people; Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre, etc. but I'd been an artist for "so long" that I wasn't all that impressed, and it was the era of conceptual art with not enough dirty hands. But I was totally focused. Where would I have ended up at 17 in NY living with my boyfriend and without family, if I hadn't had my art, my training and encouragement? I had no money either, which was also great training for my career.
I am still and have always been an artist. I have a Master's Degree, have had some glory and some hardships. I have no talent for selling my work, but even when not with a gallery, I manage. I do what I love every day.
My studio is my heart. Thank you, Music and Art.

Lloyd A. Green link

6/24/2018 03:31:59 pm

Thank you for sharing, Patricia.

6/24/2018 04:38:27 pm

I notice that your photo is not in the yearbook. Would you like to send me one to attach to your story for the book?

Walter Gray

6/24/2018 11:45:52 pm

Spring of 1944. I was not yet 12 years old and about to graduate from the 8th grade (lots of skipping in those years; I guess the faster NYC pushed kids through school, the less it cost). Had lunch and started to leave for my M&A audition. My mother told me to be sure to tell “them” about my paternal grandfather, the cantor; her uncle, the Boston Symphony oboist; and my father’s Uncle Charlie, the music arranger. “Oh, Ma,” said I, “They won’t care about that.”

But it turned out they did and I dutifully reported all three.

It was not until a year and a half later, when I and my new (old) trombone reached 3rd Term Orchestra, that I discovered that all the simplified symphonic music we played had been arranged by Uncle Charlie. And it was some years later that that I found he (Charles J Roberts) had been chief of arrangements for Carl Fischer.

Walt Gray
M&A, June 1948

David N Moore

6/26/2018 12:01:12 pm

My first reason for auditioning for M&A was my love for art. All I wanted to do was draw. My secondary reason was I didn’t want to go to my zone school. I knew too many thugs and bad influence types to know that getting an education would have been extremely difficult. So I find out that I have to put together a portfolio with various art styles ie: pastels, pen and ink, water color etc. I spend a couple weekends in the library near my home in Laurelton Queens working on my craft using mediums i’d Not previously used. But I felt good about my chances. I really wasn’t very nervous if memory serves me, but I knew I wasn’t a lock either. I just felt I did my best and let it ride. When the acceptance letter came I damn near threw a party I was so happy. I’m going to follow my dream. But then my mother tells me, you’re going to have a long commute, if you’re late we will take you out of the school. So it was the Q5 bus to the E train, to the A and then the CC and I made sure my latenesses were minimal. I loved my school and I loved my class. Class of 1984 the last graduating class from the Castle on the Hill.

6/27/2018 12:19:08 am

Thanks, David. Glad you stuck with it.

Sharing Audition Stories - Part 2

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Lloyd A. Green

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