In the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, the city that never sleeps, it can take a lot to get people's attention. But standing up in front of historic Carnegie Hall, with their miniature cellos and violins slung across their tiny backs, bright-eyed and excited, the young members of Westport's Suzuki School of Music managed to do just that.

Busy passers-by power-walking along West 57th Street couldn't help but slow down, turn their heads and eventually form a crowd, overwhelmed by the sheer cuteness of the miniature musicians.

But this hoard of youngsters, their ages varying from 4 years old to 16, weren't just tourists on a sightseeing tour. They were there to do something many professional musicians spend their entire careers without

SUZUKI MUSIC
Click the photo to see and hear the young musicians.

accomplishing: to play Carnegie Hall, the hall made famous by Antonin Dvorak and George Gershwin.

Suzuki music schools specialize in teaching music to children. The goal isn't to create a batch of young virtuosos, but to help make them better people — to teach complex learning skills, promote creativity and instill a sense of compassion.

Created in the mid-20th century by Dr. Shinichi Suzuki, the Suzuki style of teaching reasons that if a child can learn their native language at a very young age, a child can learn an instrument too.

The Westport school's young musicians, 106 of them in all, played as part of Carnegie's "America's Youth in Concert" series.

Dr. Andrew Smith, the school's director, said once he had the invitation from Carnegie to arrange the trip with two other Suzuki schools from the area, he couldn't pass it up.

"To say that I had some over-arching plan in mind when I arranged it would be belittling at this point," he said. "After all, it's Carnegie Hall."

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To get 106 antsy young people organized onto buses, migrate them from the bus to the backstage area and eventually on stage at Carnegie Hall is a feat comparable to spinning plates on sticks — only, in this case, the plates need frequent bathroom breaks. The 40 chaperones had their hands full.

For Mia Jacobson, a 12-year-old violinist from Easton, and a lot of her classmates, it took a while for the scope of playing Carnegie Hall to sink in.

"I was at my locker today and it hit me," she said. "In a few hours, I would be playing Carnegie Hall."

On the bus ride to New York City, Bryan Page, a 9-year-old who goes to Timothy Dwight School in Fairfield, cautiously admitted he had never heard of Carnegie Hall until his mother filled him in.

"I got nervous when she told me there would be, like, 2,800 people there," he said.

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Once the players walked on stage and sat before a nearly sold-out crowd, there was nothing left to do but play their first song, F.M. Veracini's "Gigue." The moment the first song ended, with the musicians' notes still reverberating against the walls, the audience erupted into some of the loudest applause ever heard in the old hall — though those in attendance might have been biased.

After all, it's not likely Gershwin's parents, grandparents and siblings were in the audience the night he debuted "Concerto in F."

After their performance, as they filed back to the green room, the musicians nervously buzzed to each other their reactions.

"That was," said Bryan Page, taking a long pause before blurting out, "kind of exciting."

Ten-year-old Westport resident Monique Medina's thoughts began to drift toward the future as she walked out Carnegie's musicians-only exit, carrying her violin back to the bus.

"I want to come back and play here again someday," she said as she climbed on the bus. "But not any time soon. I feel like I still need to practice."

Keith Whamond, who covers regional issues for ConnPost.com, can be reached at 330-6388.