AIKEN — The Joye in Aiken festival commenced March 6 with a New Orleans-style funeral parade with music, marchers, tossed beads and a horse-drawn funeral coach that circumambulated a block of downtown Aiken.
Before the parade, jazz trumpeter Riley Mulherkar, the festival’s artistic director, huddled on a street corner with a quartet of students from South Aiken High School, teaching them how to play “Second Line,” a tune featured in New Orleans street parades.
“You might get tired playing this song over and over again, so you might have to spice it up,” Mulherkar told the students, demonstrating riffs improvised from the melody.
Austin Gantt, director of bands at South Aiken High, said the experience of playing with Mulherkar is great for his students.
“That high quality instruction that comes from what he’s been able to offer them is outstanding,” he said.
“This is a something different than what they do on a normal basis. It gives them an experience outside of the band classroom,” Gantt said. “They can take some time and get what it’s like to not always be in the academic setting, to improvise and know more of the joy that comes from music.”
Eric Boetsch, president of the festival’s board of directors, said he was pleased to see people gathering in the Newberry Street Festival area to follow the parade route to Park Avenue, Laurens Street, Richland Avenue and back to the fountain on Newberry Street.
“We’re looking forward to kicking off the festival. A lot of the community has come out,” he said.
“We’ve got something for everybody this year. We’ve got jazz, dance, piano, vocal, organ and chamber with a little bit of a grunge rock twist,” Boetsch said. “We encourage everybody to come out and have a good time.”
The festival runs through March 13. Tickets are available through www.joyeinaiken.com.
Mulherkar pointed the bell of his trumpet toward the sky and signaled the start of the parade with long, high notes, and the musicians and spectators began their processional, followed by a glittering horse and rider and a horse-drawn funeral coach driven by Robert Shellhouse.
Three late-arriving students with a flute, a trumpet and a mellophone joined in as the parade proceeded.
“I had no idea they were even going to jump in. All of a sudden, behind me, I heard a trumpet,” Mulherkar said afterward.
Christine Wernet and Natalia Bowdoin said they didn’t know the parade was going to pass by their table in front of Taj of Aiken on Richland Avenue.
“This wasn’t our plan, but we’re enjoying it,” Bowdoin said.
“You can’t ask for a better way to kick off the festivities here. I love the parade. I love how people come out,” Mulherkar said. “It really lets the whole town know, loudly, that the festival has kicked off. We’ve got a lot in store this year, as always.”
“I’m really proud of these kids. You know, they learned this song 10 minutes before we all started playing together. This band is made up a couple different high schools, so just to see them getting to play together, that’s awesome,” he said.