This Saturday, several band students attended All District Band auditions, a highly competitive individual event. Two students placed high enough to qualify for the ensembles. They will perform in January.
Shyla Register qualified for all district honor band on contra-alto clarinet.
Alex Dawson qualified for all district honorable mention band as an alternate on percussion.
Here are the rest of the results:
Miracle Plotner: 26th of 42 flutes
Ainsley Vandenburg: 35th of 42 flutes
Kaylee Wilbers: 38th of 42 flutes
Shyla Register: 51st of 54 clarinets
Richard Walker: 13th of 14 bass clarinets
Shyla Register: 1st of 3 contra-alto clarinets
Alex Dawson: 5th of 15 mallet percussionists
Anthony Kitsch: 2nd of 3 jazz bassists
Some more information, if you're interested:
366 students traveled to Warrensburg to compete for a spot in one of two West-Central District bands: the (more prestigious) Honor band, and the (secondary) honorable mention band. The qualifying students were given music folders to prepare their music for the district bands' performance in January. It's very difficult for students from smaller schools like ours, because the spots in those bands are frequently occupied by students from schools with bigger bands and more resources, like Harrisonville, Ray-Pec, Warrensburg, Pleasant Hill, Grain Valley, Knob Noster, Boonville, and Smith-Cotton. Still though, the ones who dedicate dozens of hours of practice time to the audition music rise to the challenge and qualify for the bands.
The auditions involve the individual musician entering a room with 3-4 judges and playing, from memory, every note their instrument is capable of, twice. (Lowest to highest, then back down). The judges then pick 2 major scales (from a list of 9) for the musician to play in the full range of their instrument, from memory. After that, the student plays 6 prepared pieces, which can each last anywhere from 15 seconds to 3 minutes. It is an arduous process to say the least, which is why most students don't even try. (Even I was scared to audition until my senior year.)
At the end of the day, the students are ranked in order of best to worst, and the top few on each instrument get to be a part of one of the all district bands. There is also an all-district jazz band, a separate ensemble with a similar audition process, which is why our bass guitarist was able to audition this year.
