NEW YORK -- “And to think these two schools from Puerto Rico were devastated and they got to Carnegie Hall,” said Deb Heiney, business manager, Allentown Band, after the band’s stellar performance on the Ronald O. Perelman Stage, Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York City, for the concluding night of the 2019 New York International Music Festival.

The festival, presented by World Projects Corp., brought six high school music groups and two college ensembles, which were adjudicated to qualify for participation, to the five-day festival, April 13-17, in New York.

School groups attending included: Ágape Musical Concert Band, Cayey, Puerto Rico; Beckman High School String Orchestra, Irvine, Calif.; Clovis High School Symphony Orchestra & Jazz Band, Clovis, Calif.; Mira Mesa High School Symphony Orchestra & Wind Ensemble, San Diego, Calif., and Temecula Conservatory Of Music Youth & Chamber Orchestras, Temecula, Calif.

Members of the Allentown Band boarded three Trans-Bridge buses, along with their instruments, and joined by spouses, family, friends and band fans, at the Allentown Fairgrounds, noon April 17, and returned at about 1:30 a.m. April 18.

Those on the trip enjoyed a bright, sunny afternoon in Manhattan prior to the concert.

The Allentown Band headlined the approximate 2-1/2-hour concert. The concert included the Oberwalliser Blasorchester. a wind orchestra from Upper Valais, Switzerland, and the Beckman High School String Orchestra.

The Allentown Band, conducted by Ronald Demkee, performed the Overture from “Russlan and Ludmilla Overture,” Mikhail Glinka and Frank Winterbottom; “Colonial Song,” Percy Grainger; “Mars and Venus” from “Looking Upward Suite,” John Philip Sousa; “Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral” from “Lohengrin,” Richard Wagner, and “Dance of the Jesters,” from “The Snow Maiden,” P.I. Tchaikovsky.

Centerpiece of the Allentown Band’s approximate one-hour concert was a composition by Dutch composer Johan de Meij, who conducted the Allentown Band playing his “Pennsylvania Faux Songs.”

The piece was commissioned by the Allentown Band for its 190th anniversary. The “Faux Songs” are five folk songs made up by de Meij: “On the Banks of the Susquehanna River,” “Girl From Allegheny,” “The Gettysburg March,” ”Punxsutawney Groundhog Waltz” and “Allentown Jig.”

It’s safe to say that there’s an “Allentown Band Sound.” While that sound can be heard nearly all-year-round in the Lehigh Valley, from Allentown’s West Park Bandshell, to the Miller Symphony Hall stage, to the Waldheim Park amphitheater, it has never sounded so resounding than in Carnegie Hall.

Outdoor concerts somewhat diffuse the Allentown Band’s dynamics. Carnegie Hall, with it’s unobtrusive and no-frills design, functions as a kind of giant speaker box, which amplifies the sound of any performer or performance ensemble.

Imagine the sound of Beckman’s 164 students string instrumentalists, with 24 first violinists, 28 second violinists, 14 violists, 20 cellists and four bassists in Carnegie Hall. The sound was enthralling. It was as if the heavens had parted.

Similarlily, think about Oberwalliser’s 54 wind musicians, with three flautists, two oboeists, 19 clarinetists, three bassoonists, four saxophonists, four horn players, six trumpet players, three trombone players, two euphonium players, two tuba players and six percussionists. The sound was sprightly, bouyant and flamboyant.

The Allentown Band’s 63 musicians provided even bigger performance forces, with three flautists, one piccolo player, two oboe-English horn players, three bassoonists, 12 clarinetists, four saxophone players, six French horn players, eight cornet-trumpet players, six trombone players, two euphonium players, five tuba players, one bass player, one pianist, one harpist, one accordion player and five percussionists.

The Allentown Band encore summed up the wonderful spirit of the Festival’s closing night concert before an estimated 1,200 who filled the Parquet seats and Blavatnik Family First-Tier Boxes.

The encore, of course, was the Allentown Band’s trademark version of Sousa’s 1896 march (which become the United States’ official march in 1897), “The Stars And Stripes Forever.”

Yes, the piccolo players stepped forward to play in front of the band. If that wasn’t “trilling enough,” the brass section soon followed, filling Carnegie Hall with the most powerful sound I have ever heard in my numerous times attending a concert by the band.

What put the event over the top was what happened spontaneously.

The predominantly Asian students from the Beckman ensemble, who were now in the audience, and the Puerto Rican high school students, also now in the audience, did the wave, such as what you’d see at an arena sports contest, to the beat of the “Stars And Sripes.”

They treated the Allentown Band like rock stars. And the audience’s eyes were starry-eyed at the sight.

This was truly a concert to remember. Moreover, it was an event to remember.

The Allentown Band did the Lehigh Valley proud, performing music that bridged generations and ethnicities to unite Americans, one nation under music.

After the concert, the group of students from Puerto Rico posed for a selfie outside in front of Carnegie Hall. The students smiled and cheered. Hurricane Maria, a Category 5 hurricane that devastated Dominica, the United States Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico in September 2017, was far away.

As a light rain began to fall, the Allentown Band contingent waited for its buses and soon were on their way, first past a spectacular view of the eye-popping neon billboards of Times Square, then down through the Lincoln Tunnel and westward-bound on I-78.