Steven DeSalvo Earns Senior Spotlight

Since May 17, a large portion of Montclair High School seniors have been interning at various local businesses in lieu of going to school. The program is the “Career Internship Program” or more commonly known as “CIP” or “Senior Option”. The program has been running at MHS for a few years now and is enjoyed by all MHS seniors, both present and past.

Steven DeSalvo poses in a beautiful beach scenery
Photo Courtesy of Steven DeSalvo

Steven DeSalvo is musically focused.

Instead of going on coffee runs and taking lunch orders, Montclair High School senior Steven DeSalvo had an envious and very hands-on senior option. DeSalvo spent his time working with his guitar teacher, Josh Rubin. Together, the two learned, practiced, played and recorded songs for a CD.

“My senior option was spent rehearsing and recording a number of classic jazz songs and American standards. I’m a guitarist, but I got to play bass on some of the songs and actually got to sing on others,” explained DeSalvo. “It was really great.”

Steven DeSalvo got the internship through his long-time guitar teacher Rubin.

“Josh has been teaching me guitar for about seven years now,” explained DeSalvo. “So obviously, since I know him so well, when I figured out I wanted to work with him, it was pretty easy to set up an internship.”

Steven DeSalvo’s internship came at a very convenient time for Rubin.

“Coincidentally, Josh had actually been thinking about making a CD for some time,” DeSalvo added. “So my internship presented the perfect opportunity to transition those thoughts into action.”

Together, DeSalvo and Rubin spent nearly 20 hours a week working on the CD at DeSalvo’s home.

“The main focus of my internship was for me to learn how to record music,” said DeSalvo. “But a lot of it also revolved around learning and practicing new songs to record.”

Steven DeSalvo’s favorite part of the internship was listening to the finished product. Even though he enjoyed seeing how the instrumental songs came out, DeSalvo especially liked hearing the finished product of the vocal songs. DeSalvo believed that it was nice to sit back and see what their hard work had accomplished and admire the quality of what they had just made.

While Steven DeSalvo had fun on his internship, music isn’t a career he will pursue. DeSalvo plans on going into the hotel business. Come fall he will be majoring in Hospitality Management at the University of Delaware in Newark, Del.

“I really enjoyed my senior option and I wouldn’t have wanted to do anything else,” shared DeSalvo. “It’s not every day that you really get to sit down and tap into your creativity.”

However, the CD DeSalvo and Rubin have been working on isn’t quite ready to be released just yet.“We still have some things to work out,” explained DeSalvo. “But I’ll let you all know when it’s all complete!”

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