Elm City Bowl
Hillhouse v. Wilbur Cross
Wilbur Cross High School
New Haven
Nov. 27
Imagine a really, really fat trumpet.
That’s what Hillhouse High School alum Anisha Santiago and current Hillhouse junior Luis Baez told me to visualize Thursday morning as they introduced me to a new band-related vocab word: “eupho,” short for euphonium. It’s the instrument Santiago now plays at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, of HBCU marching band fame.
“Whenever I have free time, I come and help the band,” Santiago said. Now was one of those times. Her alma mater’s marching band was playing the much-anticipated Elm City Bowl, the annual Thanksgiving showdown between Hillhouse’s and Wilbur Cross High School’s rival football teams. This year, the game was held at Wilbur Cross.
When she was still at Hillhouse, Santiago played sousaphone in the marching band and was a drum major, a conductor role connecting instrumentalists with the band director. Now, she plays the eupho and does all she can to show Hillhouse high schoolers that “someone like them can get to the big leagues.”
Santiago is currently back in town on a gap year from college to help her mom with some health issues. While she is here, she is also helping Hillhouse high schoolers with college applications and FAFSA logistics. She noted that many of the students are first-generation, meaning they’ll be the first in their families to attend college.
Santiago herself is the first in her family not just to attend college, but to graduate from high school. “If I can do it, I know that they can do it,” she said.
Hillhouse’s 15-piece band relaxed in some downtime as their team prepared to rack up points on the field, joking around with each other and building rapport with the mascot.
“What is your name?” they called out toward the puffy gray bulldog representing the Hillhouse Academics. The bulldog shrugged. Then the brass players got the dog to dougie.
“Time-out, Hillhouse!” a voice called out on the speakers. The band members perked up, straightening their postures and looking around. The football players were on a break. Now was their turn to play.
Sousaphones boomed and drummers hit complex rhythms. Sax, trumpet, trombone, and flute players switched to a one-handed hold as they sang “Ohh—ohh” in harmony. Then they raised their instruments to their mouths once again to join in the glorious marching band sound.
When a time-out is called for a certain team, Wilbur Cross Marching Band director Eric Teichman explained, their band must be ready to play “within seconds.” I watched as Teichman called out a measure number and the 49-piece band sprung into action, playing the hook from NSYNC’s 2000 “Bye Bye Bye.”
Next, they would keep the theme going with Britney Spears’ 2003 “Toxic.”
The song Teichman was most excited about, though, was from all the way back in the ‘60s. He discovered a Wilbur Cross alma mater song in a 1963 yearbook for the school, taking it upon himself to arrange it for the marching band. He’s now on a mission to “make it a thing,” doing his best to get the tune in people’s heads at games and school functions.
Marai Vargas, a junior and trumpet player at Wilbur Cross, encouraged me to stay for the end of the game to hear the whole piece complete with sung-out-loud lyrics. In one part of the song, she explained, the percussion keeps the beat while all other instruments switch to vocals, singing, “Wilbur Cross our Alma Mater, Hail to thee, all Hail!”
As fate would have it, I wouldn’t get to hear the brass and woodwind players sing. A fight broke out on the field after Hillhouse won 16-0, cutting festivities short. Police and security officers entered the field, telling fans to head home.
The schools’ marching bands took their post-game acknowledgments more calmly, taking the time to give each other congratulations on a game well played even as police hurried people along toward the exits.
Abby Heredia, a senior at Hillhouse, plays flute in her school’s marching band. “Being in the band has been so impactful in my life,” she said, describing the tight friendships she has been able to make there. “It feels more like a family than a band.”
Playing the big Cross-Hillhouse game felt good, she said, but “also sad because this is my last game as a student.” It’s the last game of the season. Next, Heredia hopes to study nursing at the University of Connecticut or Southern Connecticut State University.
Dontae James, a senior at Wilbur Cross and Educational Center for the Arts (ECA) and one of the drum majors for Cross’ marching band, is setting his sights on jazz. Aside from marching band, James also plays alto saxophone in the school’s other two bands: concert and jazz. He has done sets at Three Sheets and 116 Crown Cocktail Bar. On Sundays, you can catch James working tech at St. Paul & St. James Episcopal Church, where he sometimes joins his teacher for the church’s jazz service, putting church tunes to a groovy beat.
And how is Santiago doing in the big leagues? “It is so, so good,” she said of the Blue & Gold Marching Machine, North Carolina A&T’s band. They take their craft extremely seriously—“That’s what I love about it. Band there is a lifestyle.” From high school to college, Santiago credits marching band for teaching her discipline, accountability, and how to rely on others even when it seems impossible.
Now a senior, Santiago has traveled with her band to Detroit, Texas and even NFL games. “For me, it started here,” she said, looking toward the Hillhouse crew in their marching band outfits and plumed hats. The on-field high school experience brought her into what is now a life-long passion.
Santiago’s dream is to direct a high school band of her own. She is well on her way to making that dream come true; her major at North Carolina A&T is in music education. Even now, in her early years as a Hillhouse marching band alum, she is already putting in the work to mentor and inspire current students.
It’s a “full-circle” journey, as she put it.
