Senior Michael Dang and junior Amy Lee were both recently selected to be a part of the TMEA 6A Texas All-State Band. This is one of the most prestigious opportunities students can take on in their performances in band.

“This is [Michael’s] third time to make it all the way to area and he’s been really close to making All-State so I was really excited,” band director Mike Howard said. “I think he put the work in necessary to make it and I was excited to see that it worked out for him. Amy and Michael are our first All-State trumpet and percussionist from this band. We’ve never had one. So that’s really exciting.”

Approximately 24,000 students start the process and a little over 1 percent, about four hundred students, are able to make the group.

“It was just very rewarding audition experience and it just makes you appreciate all the hard work you’ve done because you’ve toiled and stressed for over three months trying to practice these etudes.” Lee said.

The All-State process in terms of musical preparation for Lee and Dang lasted about five months. The students received the music in August and just finished the final audition this past week.

“I practiced the etudes a lot,” Lee said. “I just repeated them over and over again, fixing things at the same time, and I played in front of the entire class, I played in front of my directors, my private lesson teacher. I record myself because that makes me feel uncomfortable.”

Both Lee and Dang were trailblazers for their sections- Lee was the first trumpet in the band to make All-State, Dang was the first percussionist.

“At first it was like when you don’t really believe something, when you can’t really grasp,” Dang said. “Because when you look at the paper and you realize you’re going to play with the All-State band and then I got home and everybody was congratulating me, I realize that I actually did something pretty important. First disbelief, not necessarily denial, but just kinda understated it.”

The competition exposes band members to different kinds of music and expands their skills, as musicians and as people.

“It’s very good for discipline,” Lee said. “It taught me to just be persistent and keep practicing that same routine over and over again, so I can keep up the consistency because if you change something or do something different then your consistency goes down the drain. So it’s very good for discipline and I feel like I got better as a musician because the etudes are designed to help you. It challenges you, it makes you practice skill sets that you probably never really practice, and it helps you just get a good practice routine and helps the discipline because practicing is not fun sometimes.”

The members of the All-State band will gather in San Antonio from Feb. 10-13 to audition for chairs within the band, rehearse, and perform the etudes they’ve worked on for so long.

“When I was in eighth grade I got first chair regional orchestra and percussion,” Dang said. “I was basically choosing between basketball and band at that point because I was pretty good at basketball. I was basically telling everybody that I was going to be in All-State band by my sophomore year and here we are four years later. Better late than never.”

The next step for them is to attend the musical auditions and rehearsals, which will be held in February the 10-13.