Freshmen Nicolas Anchondo and Hudson Case, sophomore Abigail Stoetzner, juniors Trevor Boydston, Riley Case, Clara Beth Elsenrath, and Sammy Hilles, and senior Hayden Buckman, from the Heritage High School Band, were recently sent to Athens, Georgia, to perform in the All-State Honor Band. 508 kids were accepted into the All-State Honor Band, and we had eight students accepted. That doesn’t seem like much, but considering that there are 808 high schools in Georgia, and 508 students are accepted, then each high school can expect to have one or less students accepted, so the Heritage Band did pretty well to have eight students accepted. The Heritage High School All-State Honor Band members placed eighth in the amount of students they sent in the state.
To be able to take part in such a performance, students had to make it through two rounds of competitions to be in the All-State Band, so they have to be the best of the best in the state. Students from all over the state first competed for District Honors back in December, and the kids who made it through competed in the All-State round of auditions in January to be a part of the All-State band performance on March 2nd.
“I had to prepare a couple of études, which are little pieces that I had to play,” Nicolas Anchando said. “I also had to do a sight reading, which is where you go in there and you play a piece that you’ve never seen before.”
Anchondo told us that in preparation for the auditions and the performance, he practiced around 10 to 15 hours a week. That’s around 2 hours every day, but clearly the hard work paid off, since he was able to be one of eight Heritage students to go to Athens for the All-State performance.
However, one student almost didn’t go, but at the last second was selected to be in the performance. “Mr. Wynn, the band director, called me into his office and I thought I was in trouble and he’s like, ‘No, you’re not in trouble. This is kind of weird. You’ve been called to All-State,’” said Hudson Case, a freshman drummer. “It’s a three hour drive to get there, to Athens, and rehearsal started in four hours,” Case said. “So I had to leave school and rush home to pack everything in five minutes and then leave. And then I got there and I had to sight read the music because a lot of the people already had the music ahead of time.”
During the trip, the All-State Honor Band got to spend time together and even make new friends while getting to play music together. Famous conductors, such as Jeffrey Grogan, Jaclyn Hartenberger, and David Kehler, were brought in to help with the All-State Honor Band. The All-State Band played songs like “Over the Moon” and “Spoon River.” The Heritage Honor Band students look forward to hopefully being a part of it again next year.
