Kristina Kronauer, left, and Eva Keena rehearse for Saturday’s concert at the library. (Courtesy photo by Elizabeth Frothingham)

Bromfield juniors Kristina Kronauer and Lizzie Douglas are on the home stretch leading up to the concert they’ve planned for Saturday, Nov. 24, at 7 p.m. in Volunteers Hall at the library.

The two National Honor Society students chose the concert as a way to fulfill the society’s requirement for providing six hours of service leading a group project once a year. Both girls are active musicians themselves, and have busy school lives. Douglas plays in the Bromfield flute choir and also plays flute at Indian Hill School of Music in Littleton. She is on the teen advisory board at the library, and volunteers in the library’s children’s room for storytimes. Kronauer plays the viola at Bromfield and at Indian Hill, sings in the Bromfield chorus, and is on the girls track team. And then there is the homework. As National Honor Society members, both girls must keep their grade-point averages at 3.3 or better. But somehow both students have managed to make room in their lives for taking on the challenge of organizing the concert. Kronauer said she has probably spent at least 20 hours on the six-hour project so far.

Douglas said that she and Kronauer started working on the project in September. Their first idea was a coffeehouse, but after some discussion they settled on a concert. And although the Bromfield School has in Cronin Auditorium what might seem to be the perfect venue for such an event, the girls said the auditorium was designed for acting and drama, and that the acoustics aren’t suitable for musical concerts. Plus, they said, they would have to pay for hall rental and custodial services there. By contrast, the vaulted ceiling in Volunteers Hall provides near-perfect acoustics for such an event, they said, and there is no fee for using the facility.

The biggest challenge in putting together the concert has come, said the pair, not from lining up musicians and music, but from raising money to put a piano in Volunteers Hall. Originally they had hoped to move the piano from the Bromfield School to the library for the concert, and had found the cost for that would be about $400. But last week Bromfield Music Director Tom Reynolds put a damper on that plan, out of concern for the safety and integrity of the school’s instrument. So the girls had to scramble to find a piano. They found one at Bushell Piano Movers of Framingham, which has offered to provide a free four-day piano rental, and will charge only for moving the instrument into, and back out of, Volunteers Hall—a fee of $700.

Douglas said that people have been very generous so far with donations, especially the Lions Club.

“We’re very appreciative of everyone who’s donated,” she said, adding that they would all be acknowledged in the 16-page concert program the girls produced.

Kronauer said she and Douglas have received commitments for almost the whole $700 they need, although not all of it is in hand yet. The girls said they will not charge admission for the concert, as library rules forbid that, but they will gladly welcome donations.

The concert, expected to last between one and one and a half hours, will feature six to seven musicians, about a dozen members of the Bromfield chorus, and guest pianist Justin Bartlett, a Bromfield graduate majoring in piano performance at Oberlin College. Kronauer said that Bromfield Chorus Director Talia Mercadante, a former piano major at UNH, has spent a lot of time helping the piano quartet prepare for the concert.

And of Bartlett she said, “I expect him to be outstanding.”