By Zach Strober ’19

Playing the guitar has always been an important part of Will Rosenthal ’19’s life. Rosenthal’s father, David, who has played the guitar for a long time, introduced Will to the instrument when Will was very young, and he fell in love with it.

“My dad made me want to start playing guitar. He has played guitar for a long time and has been putting a guitar in my hands all of my life,” Rosenthal said.

He loves anything he can play because he finds every song to be special in its own way. “In every song, I learn there is something new I can use to make me a better player,” Rosenthal said.  

Although he claims not to have a favorite genre of music, Rosenthal believes that “nothing can out play a great blues guitar solo.”

Nevertheless, there are a few genres he prefers to play. “I really love to play blues, jam band music and jazz. These three genres of music just have such a large appeal to me,” Rosenthal said.

Ultimately he decided to take his love of the guitar to the next level by forming his own band, Orbit. Although Rosenthal moved from Westport to Weston just this year, the band, which is composed of four of Rosenthal’s friends from Weston, has stayed together.

Orbit plays a wide range of covers, but also likes to create their own pieces. “[We] make lots of original songs that we play,” he said.

His first time performing on stage was with his band at the Ridgefield Bandjam, which is a competition for local middle school and high school bands. In the concert, they played what Rosenthal described as a cover band piece and an original Orbit song.

“I was extremely nervous for the concert,” he said. “It was a huge competition. But, thankfully, we won.”

Orbit went back to the competition again the next year, and they won again.

Although these performances were memorable for Rosenthal, since then, Orbit has been in five other competitions, winning three of them. This year, Rosenthal is helping to run the competition rather than perform in it, but still seeks the spotlight.

“Being on stage is awesome,” he said. “With all of the lights shining on me and everybody clapping, being on stage is a really cool experience.”