As the new year arrives, the bountiful amount of new goals to achieve comes along with it. The Patchogue-Medford music department, for example, has many new and exciting things that it wishes to accomplish this year. And it has already encountered positive experiences during the first couple of days of 2018.

The Vocal Jazz Ensemble, directed by Mr. Reich, was asked to perform for the county legislature in Hauppauge on January 2nd. Mr. Reich states, “ It was an honor that the Pat-Med Vocal Jazz Ensemble was asked to sing the national anthem at the first session of the Suffolk County Legislature.” Mr. Reich is extremely proud of the choir and grateful to the county that out of all the school districts in Suffolk, Patchogue Medford was chosen. He hopes that the Jazz Ensemble will continue to sing for the county legislature in the future. The Vocal Jazz ensemble is also arranging to combine with the Jazz Band, directed by Mr. Johnson, to perform a song for both performance nights, Vocal Night and Jazz Night.

Patchogue-Medford High School also introduced the very first Glee Club. Run by Mrs. Sweda, choreographer, and Mr. Reich, vocal director, the Glee Club is comprised of only 15 students out of the entire school. The group performs a mix of popular showtunes, such as “The Schuyler Sisters” from Hamilton. Their first performance is scheduled for March 13th, on Vocal Night.

On another note, the All School Musical is only a few weeks away from opening night. This years musical is The Little Mermaid, and the cast, pit, and crew, are very thrilled to be apart of this production that has never been performed here at the high school. Victoria Andrunik, playing the role of “Ariel” states, “The cast is very talented and dedicated, and puts in a lot of work to make this show the best it can be.” Autumn Manes playing “Ursula” and Erin Winn, playing “Flounder” state, “We are so proud to be apart of this music department and will forever hold it dear to our hearts. We are so excited to show all our hard work to everyone! No one does musical theatre like Pat-Med!”

Mr. Zarchy is the pit director of the musical, and is working very hard to make the pit beautifully execute the difficult music by Alan Menken. Not only does he overlook the music for the show, he is also proud to announce that several students from orchestra are participating in the Long Island String Festival, taking place on January 12-14. The students participating in the festival are Abby Yoches, Nicholas Lyons, Aidan Minushkin, and Miral Oltulu.

The music department is also making plans for the next school year, such as the addition of a Treble Choir, a chorus just for female students. With many new experiences that will come in the future, there will always be students to fulfill those desires of the music department, and the love of music will remain the same.