The Whitman Music program will perform a professional show at Strathmore for the first time April 20, cutting their trip to Philadelphia short.

Despite this, chorus director Jeffrey Davidson isn’t worried about losing a day.

“Instead of four days, it’s a three day trip,” Davidson said. “We’re doing a lot in Philadelphia, anyway, musically, educationally, and socially. That fourth day that would have been the music trip is going to be taken for Strathmore, the week after the trip.”

The show, entitled “An Evening with Whitman Music,” will include performances from the Treble Chorale, Women’s and Men’s Chorus, Chamber Choir, Jazz Ensemble, Wind Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra, Concert Orchestra and Symphonic Band.

This year’s concert is reminiscent of Whitman’s show at Carnegie Hall six years ago, where eight groups of students performed a full concert.

“We decided to do that again, but now, because we have Strathmore Hall right here, we’ve rented the main concert hall to do a similar performance with nine groups,” Davidson said.

“An Evening With Whitman Music” will be a one-time deal, not a recurring event, because it is such a detailed performance, band director Terry Alvey said.

“There’s so much organization to do to prepare for the show because it’s such a big deal,” Davidson said. “If we made this an annual event, it would kill us.”

Both Davidson and Alvey have been hard at work preparing students for the show.

“We spend our time in class going through the three pieces we’re going to play and try to iron out all the little details to make it sound as good as possible,” Symphonic Band member Ferzam Mohammad said.

Both Davidson and senior Gloria Kim said the preparation for Strathmore was not unlike any other performance they prepare for.

“We’re very careful and consistent about the quality of music we produce because Whitman kids have good taste and are sophisticated enough to want to perform good repertoire,” Davidson said. “It doesn’t matter where it is, we push our students to be pretty darn good.”

Tickets can be purchased on the Strathmore website for $10.