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It was about four months ago when Joey Pero played an alumni concert at Batavia High School and ended up in talks about doing a little something for Batavia Concert Band’s centennial season this year.
A collaborative discussion with band manager Jason Smith and band conductor John Bailey resulted in more than a little something, as Pero, a 1999 BHS graduate who went on to make a name for himself as a talented trumpet player and most recently went on tour with Jesus Christ Superstar, reached beyond merely playing a piece for the concert.
“And they said, ‘Well, what would you like to play?’ And I was just, I kind of mulled it over, and I said, 'Well, geez, you know, we have an alma mater song called Ever Batavia I remember playing in graduation. And why don't I do something really specific to Batavia for the 100th anniversary?' And you know, the more I thought about it, the more it kind of unwound in my head. And the more research I did, there are actually two alma maters. One was written in 1901 by Leslie Coryell, and it's called the blue and white. And then Hoyt Irwin wrote Ever Batavia in 1938. And that's been pretty much the song that is played at graduations, our alma mater events,” Pero said to The Batavian. “So after doing this research about the two, I said, well, I'm gonna write a piece for the concert band and weave these two pieces together kind of like a mash-up.
"And, you know, I wanted to also make the solo part easy for an intermediate level person so that at the conclusion of this concert Wednesday, I'll actually gift the piece to not only the Batavia Concert Band but the Batavia High School archives, so maybe in the future for the bicentennial they can play this piece," he said. "I wrote it with that in mind as well, that it would maybe have some forward life in the future.”
He took the 1901 piece, “The Blue and White,” written by W. Leslie Coryell, and “Ever Batavia,” written by Hoyt Irwin in 1938 and created a brand new piece for the band to celebrate two different decades, time periods and songs that were composed in contrasting tempos. Wednesday’s concert at 7 p.m. in Centennial Park will debut “Ever Blue and White,” a three-minute and 20-second composition by Joey Pero.
“No one's really done anything like that, for these pieces of music are two pretty standard types of pieces you would hear at any school, but I kind of gave it some cool elements and some cool counter lines and some sonorities that I think the band can really handle well and play the heck out of. So, for those who don't know, the concert band practices on Tuesday, the repertoire on Tuesday and performs it on Wednesday, so it's not like they're rehearsing this for months on end or weeks on end. It's really like a sight reading thing and then a performance the next day, and certainly, I'm looking forward to hearing this come to life,” he said. “You sit behind a computer and put these notes on a page. And you know, it plays back on a computer … so it's computerized sound. But the magic is really when they play the first note and that gives lift to the piece of music. So I'm looking forward to that the most.”
The rain location is at Stuart Steiner Theatre on the Genesee Community College campus, 1 College Road, Batavia. Inclement weather has pushed the musicians out to GCC the last two weeks, but Pero and band members, including band manager Jason Smith, are keeping fingers crossed for a clear-skied park performance this week.
“We are excited to have Joey join the Batavia Concert Band as we continue to celebrate our centennial anniversary! Joey was a proud member of the Band, and I was personally and musically thrilled when he returned to our hometown this past year,” Smith said. “Conductor John Bailey and I have enjoyed collaborating with him for this concert on Wednesday, and his presence and the special piece he composed for the Concert Band will be a special honor and is not to be missed — let's hope for no rain! Many of us, including me, have followed and appreciated Joey's musical career over the years, and for him to write a song incorporating the Batavia High School alma mater is indeed special.”
Pero is on a hiatus from the musical world, he said, since his contract with Jesus Christ Superstar ended in summer 2022 and he moved back to Batavia and launched his first AirBnB. Business has been booming, and the two-unit property has been booked ever since he began to advertise it, he said.
Visitors have come to stay from California, Indiana, Florida, Canada, New Jersey, Russia, and as nearby as Rochester, either for a relaxing staycation or to go see Darien Lake, Batavia Downs, Letchworth State Park or to get a glimpse of the eclipse in Genesee County, he said.
Of course, visitors could also attend a free concert every Wednesday, and Pero, who played in the group from 1997 to 1999, can attest to the quality of the Batavia Concert Band.
“It’s a damn good band; they sounded great,” he said of the last concert at GCC.
He described the process of taking this song through “various dynamics and tempos and time signatures.”
“I’ve morphed it into different time signatures and different tempos and I also interwove the two together. So if you listen carefully, you can hear one, and you can hear the other one kind of hinting in the background,” he said. So it's kind of cool how I mashed it up and was able to fit both in with both of them being so different at the same time. There's a beautiful intro to the tune with trilling flutes, clarinets, and piccolos, and the French horns come in with this Blue and White melody, and then the trombones come under it with Ever Batavia. So you can tell right off the bat here that both of the tunes are kind of infused in the introduction.
“I really hope the band enjoys playing it. There are some challenging parts, and I highlighted at least one section each of the band,” he said. “So there’s some moments for the percussion, there’s some moments for the French horns, the trombones, the clarinets certainly and the flutes certainly.”
He credits Josh Pacino for being a tremendous help with the archive search for the songs, which allowed Pero “to gain perspective on these two pieces of music,” he said.
