She set a goal and she reached it.
\nMorgann Davis was recently named the very best flute in her section at the 2003 PMEA All-State Band Festival held earlier this month in Hershey. She received first-chair honors.
\n\u201cThis was a goal that I set a long time ago,\u201d said the bright-smiled Tyrone senior. \u201cI worked hard and played the very best that I could and it all worked out for me. I\u2019m just totally excited about the whole thing.\u201d
\nDavis\u2019 road to the state festival began in November with her pre-audition for the District 6 Band Festival. At this audition, she placed fifth chair out of 90 flute players in Blair, Bedford, Cambria and Somerset counties.
\nHer next advancement came when she auditioned at the District Band Festival in January, where she placed second chair out of 12 flutes in her section.
\nFinally, at the Region III Band Festival, her audition for the state festival earned her first chair.
\nShe was the only Flute I to represent all of Region III, which includes 60 schools in Blair, Bedford, Cambria, Somerset, Centre, Clinton, Clearfield, Mifflin, Huntingdon, Fulton and Juniata counties.
\nThe auditions for the state festival occurred April 9.
\n\u201cThey asked all of the flutes on my part to play the same passages for the songs we were playing,\u201d said Davis. \u201cIt was a blind audition so the judges don\u2019t see you and they don\u2019t know who you are. I played through two passages and I was done.\u201d
\nDavis said the auditions took about 30 minutes for her instrument group, then the participants were given their room assignments. She said she had to wait until the next day to find out how she fared.
\n\u201cWe were in the rehearsal hall and they were calling people up on stage based on where the instruments were seated on the stage,\u201d said Davis. \u201cThey were calling them first chair to last chair and I\u2019m used to them calling last chair to first chair, so when they called it, I knew it was first chair, but I wasn\u2019t quite sure I heard them right.\u201d
\nShe said she didn\u2019t go crazy when her name was called.
\n\u201cI was pretty happy, but I tried to contain myself,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t really get excited about it until I called home to tell my mom.\u201d
\nDavis contained her emotions for the rest of the weekend with her, and dozens of the best high school instrument players, practicing up to the final show, performed Saturday afternoon.
\n\u201cIt was probably the most fun I\u2019ve ever had at the festival,\u201d said Davis. \u201cThere was less pressure because there was no where to go after that. You didn\u2019t have to worry about advancing to the next level.
\n\u201cThe other thing I enjoyed was meeting all the different people,\u201d she continued. \u201cIt was nice being the only person from Tyrone there. If I went with people I knew from Tyrone, I probably would have just hung around them the whole time. This allowed me to meet a whole lot of people that I probably wouldn\u2019t have met otherwise.\u201d
\nHer flute career began when she first started playing in third grade.
\n\u201cI really don\u2019t even know why I began playing it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt just looked interesting.\u201d
\nThrough sixth grade, she continued to play, but going into junior high, she began losing interest.
\n\u201cI\u2019m not sure why, but I did,\u201d she said. \u201cI then started taking private lessons and with the encouragement from Gerry Roberts (former TAHS band director), I decided to stick with it. I\u2019m glad I did.\u201d
\nNow, her music career is flourishing. She also plays the piccolo, piano and sings vocals.
\n\u201cI do a lot with music just because I love it,\u201d she said.
\nAlthough she said she doesn\u2019t have any musical influences, she enjoys listening to all types of music, including instrumentals, classical and jazz. She said her favorite musical group is The Dave Matthews Band.
\nNow, Davis is getting ready for college.
\nShe said she recently attended a college fair, but said it didn\u2019t deter her plans to study at Ohio State University next year, where she plans to study music education and flute performance. For the last few weeks, she had been weighing her choices for higher education as she had offers from Penn State University, Duquesne, Susquehanna University, Michigan and Ithaca.
\n\u201cI guess the biggest reason I chose Ohio State is because of their music professor (Katherine Borst-Jones),\u201d said Davis. \u201cShe\u2019s a great person that I think will be able to help me continue through my music career.\u201d
\nDavis said although she loves music, she doesn\u2019t believe she would be where she is today if she went to any other high school.
\n\u201cHere at Tyrone, I learned so much with all my friends around,\u201d said Davis. \u201cAll my teachers care about what the students are doing in the school, both academically and outside the classroom. I couldn\u2019t have chosen a better place to get my initial educational experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She set a goal and she reached it. Morgann Davis was recently named the very best flute in her section at the 2003 PMEA All-State Band Festival held earlier this month in Hershey. She received first-chair honors. \u201cThis was a goal that I set a long time ago,\u201d said the bright-smiled Tyrone senior. \u201cI worked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}