There’s an old joke, in which an out-of-towner asks a New Yorker, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”

To which he replies, “Practice, practice, practice.”

All that practice pays off next Friday for the Susquehanna University Masterworks Chorus and Orchestra, which will take the stage at Carnegie Hall to help the university kick off its sesquicentennial celebration in style. They will be joined on the stage by a cohort of 100 SU alumni.

Brett Hosterman, a 2006 Susquehanna graduate and director of instrumental music at Milton High School, is one of those alumni.

“I’m very excited,” said Mr. Hosterman during an interview in his office at the school. “I can’t imagine anything to top this.”

Mr. Hosterman said alumni chorus members received the music in the mail several weeks ago and have been expected to review and rehearse the music on their own. During the last week of February and the first week of March, leading up to the March 7 performance, alumni singers may join the university singers in rehearsals on campus if they are able. Two mandatory rehearsals are set, one at the university on March 6 and the other a dress rehearsal on the stage at Carnegie Hall the afternoon of the performance.

Cyril Stretansky will conduct the chorus and Jennifer Sacher-Wiley will conduct the university orchestra during the performance.

“Music is a vibrant thread woven through Susquehanna University’s history, so this is a fitting inaugural event for our sesquicentennial,” said L. Jay Lemons, president of the university, who will address the audience at Carnegie before the concert.

According to Jane Daly Seaberg, associate director of communications at Susquehanna, arranging the Carnegie event was an involved process.

“The Carnegie has certain standards, and they have been giving us their full attention,” she said. The management of the hall required the university to be licensed for the event, and lengthy negotiations took place before an agreement was reached.

Ms. Seaberg said an anonymous donor has underwitten the event, making it affordable for the university.

“That says volumes about the loyalty of the SU community,” she said.

Ms. Seaberg said the cost of the Carnegie Hall performance was slightly under $50,000.

Valerie Martin, dean of the school of arts, humanities and communications at Susquehanna, negotiated arrangements with Carnegie Hall.

“The process began with a phone call last April,” she related. “There was lots of paperwork and lots of questions. They wanted every detail of programming the event.”