Band and orchestra members rode to Salina Central High School on Saturday to audition for the elite All-State Band or All-State Orchestra.

“The auditions were for admission into the All-State Orchestra or Band,” sophomore Stephanie Fu said. “It’s really competitive because there are a lot of really good musicians in the state.”

All-State Band and Orchestra are statewide groups of instrumentalists who practice assigned music individually before coming together to perform. They are taught by accomplished conductors, often directors or conductors of college bands or orchestras. In order to audition for All-State, an instrumentalist must have already made the cut for District Band or Orchestra.

Students waited to audition for All-State in a gym, then, when called, lined up in the auditioning room.

“There were these two gyms,” Leah Selman, junior, said. “And the band kids went into one gym and the orchestra kids went into another gym. The gyms were basically warm-up rooms and you just practiced … until you got called.”

Students were called to perform by numbers assigned to them when they checked in.

“When someone came into the gym everyone quieted down. The person who came in said something like, ‘Violas 1-10,’ and the people who were called went into a room where they lined up to audition,” Selman said.  

Students auditioning played the scales, a prepared piece, and sight-red music.

“You played a chromatic scale and a major scale,” junior Elizabeth Riforgiate said.  “Then you played a prepared piece that everybody played… and that’s usually like an excerpt from a famous piece or something challenging. Then they gave you sight reading and you read the sight reading.”

The auditions were blind, which require a divider between the judges and the person auditioning so there is no chance of bias.

“It’s interesting when you’re lined up to audition, because you can sort of hear the people in front of you,” Selman said. “You try not to, but you kind of compare yourself to them and think, ‘Well, I might be better than this person, but the person that just went before me is better than me.’ It kind of freaks you out a little bit.”