Sebastian Bonaiuto

When he was in fourth grade, Sebastian Bonaiuto picked up his first instrument, the trumpet, and threw himself wholeheartedly into the demanding private lessons facilitated by his father, a former trumpeter himself. Bonaiuto has been the one teaching and inspiring students at Boston College since 1989, when he became the University’s first full-time director of bands, overseeing a comprehensive program that today encompasses more than 250 student musicians across six performing ensembles. Under his leadership, the Screaming Eagles Marching Band performed everywhere from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to a presidential inauguration, and the BC bOp! Jazz Ensemble graced stages nationwide, including the legendary Carnegie Hall. Newly retired, Bonaiuto reflected on what playing, conducting, and teaching music taught him. 

Embrace exacting standards. I learned early on the importance of achieving a high level of proficiency. My father insisted that I practice trumpet when he was home, so he could hear me and critique what I was doing. I’ll never forget one time when I stopped practicing and walked out of my room, and he said, “Why did you stop?” I said, “I’m done.” He said, “I’ll tell you when you’re done.” Back I go, into my room. But I never minded it. I thought, He cares about what I’m doing.

Music education teaches lessons for life. There’s a lot of technical instruction in creating music. But really, you’re teaching way more than music. You’re teaching values that students will take with them forever. You have to promote to students the value of quality and achievement. You have to promote a sense of responsibility, accountability, teamwork, and community. In a band, all the roles are different and complementary, and you have to understand that what you do affects what the person next to you is doing—and the person in the front row, and the person in the back row. It’s all interconnected.

Commit to your work, not your ego. All our ensembles have student executive boards. I remember one group of student leaders early on who were a bit more self-confident and independent-minded. They were very, very good musicians who did not take themselves all that seriously. I would observe their behavior, and it struck me, Wow. That’s a really good way to be: to not take yourself too seriously but to take the work seriously. That was a wonderful lesson for me.

There is power in silence. Musicians are fond of saying that silence is also a musical event. We recently performed a very emotional piece called Requiem for the Unarmed, which is by a Black composer, Kevin Day, who wrote the piece after the murder of George Floyd. He does something in the middle of the piece that is absolutely brilliant for what it does to the audience. He wrote a prolonged section where it’s just a drum and bass solo, then silence, then another drum and bass solo, and then silence, and so on. It takes a while to build and creates so much silence. Humans are not comfortable with silence. They feel awkward and start looking around. He created it specifically for that. Experience this awkwardness for yourself. It was really, really powerful.

Perfection is an illusion. One of the more exciting things about the nature of live music is that there are unexpected moments. One hopes that they are all positive. But sometimes they’re not. That’s when one realizes that perfection is not built into the human experience. Human beings are not wired to be perfect, no matter how you use that word. Perfection is a concept, not something real, and we have to learn to accept that. You know, as long as you don’t crash and burn. I’ve certainly experienced some ensembles crashing and burning. But not mine!

Music comes from the body, the mind, and the soul. Playing a musical instrument is very physical. When you watch an oboist, it looks like a very gentle exercise until you realize that they’re generating thirty-five pounds per square inch of pressure inside their heads and have to sustain that over a period of time. Music is also intellectual. A page of sheet music is only a set of symbols. A human being makes music by making meaning out of those symbols, and we all make meaning differently. Then there’s the spiritual component. Music is a gift, the source of which we may not really understand. But musicians know that we were, for lack of a better word, chosen. That has to have an impact on you. Why was I chosen? Why was I given this gift? Part of the spiritual journey is embracing that mystery. ◽