Students Alexi Heroux, Yiming Peng, Luke Xu, Francisco Ardila, Manny Pasala, James Park, Myameen Zaidi, Anthony Kunz, Jonas Heath, and Victor Basu advanced to the final stage in the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) all state process and will be attending the TMEA convention in San Antonio on Feb. 12 to play in the All-State Wind and Percussion band. Seniors Basu and Zaidi reflect on their musical journeys and 2024-2025 all-state process.
“My favorite part of playing the bassoon is its sound,” Zaidi said. “It sounds beautiful by itself as a solo and you don’t need anything to accompany it with. It just sounds good alone.”
Zaidi began playing the bassoon in middle school and in sophomore year took up the cymbals in the marching band. Cymbals are not in the wind and percussion band and therefore Zaidi took up the bassoon and learned the set music for the audition process.
“For all state we needed to learn etudes from Milde,” Zaidi said. “They’re etudes for practice and to get better at the instrument.”
Students begin preparing for this audition process early in the year. To progress to the All-State Wind and Percussion band students need to advance through the region and area stages. Students prepared eight different etudes of varying difficulties and styles.
“I wasn’t very fond of them because they’re not very fun to play,” Zaidi said. “My favorite though was the second one that we played. It was a more lyrical piece and you get to be more musical with it all.”
As many members of the band experience their final moments in the program students – including Basu – look back on the start of their music experience.
“I started playing my instrument six or seven years ago,” Basu said. “I fell in love with the instrument because it is the only one with a slide. It was very hard at first but then I got to the top. When entering high school I hit a bit of an artist block – I was in the bottom band again and it was a huge struggle to get better.”
For Basu reaching this stage is the ultimate culmination of his band experience. After many years of working his way up and dealing with feelings of inadequacy Basu is ending his band experience on a high note.
“[When I reached all-state] I felt very satisfied because many of my peers are better than me. I felt like I was the worst player.” senior Victor Basu said.
For Zaidi, she recalls a memory of this audition season and unity for her section before she leaves the program.
“Making all state was a great feeling, but one of the best feelings was the audition for Region orchestra. For our region all three spots went to Vandegrift kids,” Zaidi said. “I wish we could have swept the room at region and for area – but that didn’t happen. When it happened at the orchestra auditions I felt very proud like ‘Wow, we’re such a great bassoon section.”
