BOARDMAN — Many musicians will tell you that playing music begins with a three-step process: an initial spark, followed by a burgeoning interest and being exposed to a variety of influences — all of which often coalesce and solidify to make the process contagious.

Just ask Gabriella Sandy.

“I began playing the trumpet in eighth grade. One of my closest friends played, so I got interested,” Sandy, a K-5 general music teacher at Kirkmere Elementary School in Youngstown, remembered.

As a Niles High School student, she was under the tutelage of Carla Dean, an influential music teacher and role model who took care to “help me sound better, and that’s what I want for my students,” Sandy explained.

Undoubtedly, she wanted the same for the estimated 40 people who heard her and the other four horn players who make up the Park Avenue Brass Band, which performed a special Christmas concert Saturday afternoon in the St. James Church Meeting House in Boardman Park.

The quintet, all of whose members are music teachers, formed in March. The others are Joe Yaksich, who plays trumpet and cornet and is the Mineral Ridge High School band director; Victoria Ryser, a French horn player who teaches at Southington K-12 School; Leslie Core, a trombonist and teacher at Seaborn Elementary School in Mineral Ridge; and Jake Umbrazun, who plays the tuba and teaches in the Grand Valley School District in Ashtabula County.

Sandy earned a bachelor’s degree from Youngstown State University in music education, then returned to YSU to earn her master’s degree in conducting, she added.

A family member was the catalyst for Ryser’s desire to pick up the French horn.

“My mom told me it has a pretty sound,” said Ryser, who began playing at age 9 and took private lessons through high school.

In addition, she earned a master’s degree from YSU in horn performance, Ryser continued.

The Park Avenue Brass Band, named after the Cortland street on which Yaksich lives, also is available to perform at weddings, church services and other special events, he said.

For Saturday’s Christmas performance, the five musicians — absent a rhythm section — opened with “We Need a Little Christmas,” from the Broadway musical “Mame,” and closed with an encore of their adaptation of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

In between, the quintet entertained the nearly full pews with several favored and popular holiday lore, such as “Carol of the Bells,” “Feliz Navidad,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Sleigh Ride,” Jolly Old St. Nicholas” and the famous Vince Guaraldi tune “Christmas Time is Here.”

In addition, Yaksich was named the November Mineral Ridge High School staff member of the month.