This year, 22 students from Lake Highlands auditioned for the all-region orchestra and six students made it.
Francisco De Alba, Christopher Dykes, and Eniola Olabisi made the full orchestra, while Lexi Gray, Alex Hasler-Gray, and Ellie Wright made the string orchestra.
“That’s the most students that have made it in years,” Raphaelle Siemers, the head orchestra director, commented.
Students from many districts in the DFW metroplex audition to be part of the all-region orchestra. The students who make it have a clinic where they learn and rehearse a concert in two days. The audition was on Oct. 4 and the clinic will be held on Dec. 12 and 13.
Violin player Francisco De Alba (12) says the clinic is a great experience for musicians.
“The music we play is usually more advanced than what we do in school, and it’s exciting to work with a full orchestra surrounded by so many talented musicians,” De Alba described.
The students had about two months to learn the audition music. The amount they have to learn depends on the instrument they play. For violins and violas, they had two cuts of an etude and four excerpts from orchestra pieces. For cellos, they had two cuts of an etude and six excerpts to learn.
“We get a small piece of each song […] to play for the judges called an excerpt, so you don’t have to practice the whole song,” elaborated violin player, Lexi Gray (9).
The orchestra directors, Emily Moore and Siemers, helped the students prepare for the audition by holding weekly sectionals and provided private lessons. They also had students play the excerpts and etudes in class to help them get accustomed to playing in front of other people and did recording assignments to help track progress. Each student participating in the all-region audition also practiced outside of school.
“I prepared by practicing each excerpt slowly and carefully until I could play them cleanly and confidently at full speed. I made sure to focus on tone, intonation, and rhythm so that everything sounded consistent. It definitely took a lot of time, but seeing the improvement each day made it worth it,” De Alba said.
The audition itself is a blind audition. They gather about 30 students that play the same instrument in a room and they each play the excerpt or etude one at a time with the judges in the room. The judges are behind a curtain to prevent any bias from affecting the audition. Once the audition is over, they get the results.
“After the audition, it typically takes a day or two for audition results to return, and then those who make it get to play at the region concert,” explained cello player Christopher Dykes (12).
The region clinic and concert is a couple months after the audition to ensure that there is plenty of time to learn all the concert music. They hold the concert on Saturday night after working on the music all day.
“For the clinic, we spend three hours on a Friday night and about seven hours the Saturday after learning the music as an orchestra,” said Dykes.
Since students have to audition to get into the orchestra, they get the chance to play music with some of the best student musicians in the area.
“It’s all worth it though because the final performance is always a lot of fun and sounds great,” said De Alba.
