AURORA | Ian Watt couldn’t stop gazing at the shiny new trumpet.

The Overland High School junior cradled the instrument in his hands as if it were a newborn baby. Even as he brought the trumpet to his lips and his fingers spelled out a melody on the valves, his eyes remained open. Watt just couldn’t get over the difference in sound, feel and tone.

“It feels really nice,” Watt said as he stood on the stage at the Overland auditorium surrounded by fellow members of the school’s advanced wind ensemble. He pointed to an older trumpet sitting on a chair toward the back of the stage. “It’s a newer instrument than the one I have over there. It’s definitely nicer, it’s well-built, well-made. It’s got a better mouthpiece, better tone. I’m really happy.”

Watt is just one of Overland’s music students who will benefit from about $21,000 worth of new instruments. The trumpets, tubas, drums and other instruments came as a gift from Fidelity Investments, a financial services company. To celebrate the company’s new Colorado office the company made a surprise gift to Overland students during a ceremony April 25. After performing an instrumental version of the song “Skyfall,” the members of the school’s advanced wind ensemble watched as Fidelity employees toted new instruments on to the stage.

Fidelity partnered with the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, a national nonprofit that donates new and refurbished instruments to qualifying schools across the country.

“Arts are very important to the organization. We’ve done a number of these events nationally,” said Paul Peterson, a senior vice president with Fidelity Investments. “It’s a passion of our chairman and Fidelity more broadly, to invest in the future of arts education.”

The new Yamaha band instruments will go to good use at Overland, according to instrumental director Dan Hazlett. Before the band launched into “Skyfall,” Hazlett sketched out the breadth of the music program at Overland. The school hosts several different bands and teaching programs, including jazz, classical, beginning concert and advanced orchestra groups. The school’s bands have performed everywhere from the Irish Scottish Festival in Estes Park to the Parade of Lights in Denver.

“It’s a busy group,” Hazlett said. “We’re about two weeks away from our senior concert, where we honor our graduating seniors who will be moving on.”

Those musicians play and study at a school with a diverse student body of about 2,200. The school in the Cherry Creek School District has a minority enrollment percentage of more than 70 percent; according to figures from the Colorado Department of Education, more than 40 percent of the study body was eligible for free or reduced lunch last year.

Recently, a big stress at the school has been on science, technology, engineering and math instruction. In 2011, the district opened the $18 million Institute of Science and Technology between Overland and the neighboring Prairie Middle School campus. The school has offered Overland students a specialized campus for all STEM subjects, from robots to algebra.

But Overland administrators insisted that the arts haven’t fallen out of favor at the school. Overland Principal Leon Lundie said school officials applied for the gift from Fidelity and the Mr. Holland’s Opus foundation to keep up resources for the school’s music students. Even the new IST building includes piano labs, he added.

“I think the arts are critical,” Lundie said, adding that the discipline has value for students specializing in science as well. “I think it helps with creativity, and we want to make sure we incorporate both for students.”

The band students had a hard time holding back from playing the new instruments as Fidelity officials spoke and administrators gathered on stage during the gift ceremony on April 25. When Watt got his hands on the new trumpet, his peers yelled out titles of jazz tunes by Dave Brubeck and other requests. Watt grinned and hesitated before he tried his chops on the new horn.

“I’m really happy with what they did,” he said. “This is so awesome.”

Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com or 720-449-9707