St. Clairsville-Richland City Schools senior Logan Gillotte and his sister, Abbie Fausnaugh, an eighth-grader, join other band members and alumni Thursday evening in a porch concert.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The St. Clairsville-Richland City School District band won’t be able to attend some highly anticipated end-of-year performances due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, but band members, alumni and their musically inclined neighbors played some songs across their neighborhoods Thursday night, putting on a “porch concert.”

Videos of those who participated and shared a recording will be available on the band’s Facebook page and the school district website.

“We’re encouraging St. C residents to go out on their porches, record themselves playing a song of their choice, which will then be shared to the St. C Porch Concert hashtag on Facebook,” high school Principal Justin Sleutz said, adding that band director Justin Schwertfeger was inspired by communities in Italy.

“Over in Italy there’s kind of this phenomenon with the COVID crisis. Singing across the street. Playing music to each other from their balconies. That’s how he got the idea.”

Schwertfeger said he hoped this activity would raise the spirits of band students and their neighbors.

The band had qualified to perform at the Ohio Music Education Association State Large Group contest, which had been scheduled for May in Columbus and has been canceled.

“Our band kids, I know our seventh- and eighth-graders, they were preparing for solo and ensemble and that got canceled, and our high school band made the state contest and that was canceled, so a lot of their stuff that they would have got to perform at got canceled. I thought this was a neat, different way for them to get a chance to perform, because we can’t have a formal gathering of a concert that we normally would have,” he said.

“It’s kind of inspired, especially among my younger fifth and sixth grade band kids. A lot of them have messaged me back how excited they are to get to perform, and it kind of inspired them to practice a little bit more.”

Logan Gillotte, a senior, and his sister, Abbie Fausnaugh, an eighth-grader, played a duet of “Seven Nation Army” on the euphonium and tuba, respectively. They will upload a video online and use the suggested hashtag, #STCporchconcert..

“This is an opportunity for us band kids and performers to have an opportunity to perform. We would have had a spring concert and state Large Group, and that was taken from us by the coronavirus, so this gives us that opportunity to perform, even if it is just on our porch,” Logan said. “We’ve been working for months on the state show for the concert band. We had three or four songs ready and it got canceled, which was quite a shame.”

“Solo and ensemble got canceled,” Abbie said. “I had a (Destination Imagination) competition that got canceled.”

She referred to a DI Ohio Affiliate Tournament that had been set for April 4 at Centerville, Ohio,near Dayton.

Tyler Prettyman, a junior, was unable to participate in the porch concert since his job at Sheetz left little practice time, but he had his French horn and was on his porch for moral support of his fellow band members.

“I personally would like to. … I haven’t been able to practice at all,” he said.

“This year we made States, and we’re not going to be able to participate because of this virus, but I still think our band director is in good spirits and we can really just sit here and play music for our neighborhoods, and I think it’s a good thing to try to keep everybody’s spirits up and take their mind off the coronavirus.”

The band’s Facebook page can be found at facebook.com/stcbands/.