For the last nine years, Morgann Davis has put tons of hours in practicing her flute. Sometime she played for just an hour a night, but most of the time, it was more.
\nAll that practice has finally paid off.
\nFor the first time in six years, the Tyrone Area High School has a student representing it in All-State Band.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a real exciting honor for me,\u201d said Davis. \u201cI\u2019ve been wanting this for a long time now and it\u2019s good to set a goal and reach it. I almost went to states as a sophomore, but came up just a little short. After that, I knew I\u2019d get there again.
\n\u201cI made it this year and played well,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m glad the judges recognized that I deserved a chair.\u201d
\nDavis qualified for the designation last weekend while participating in the Region III State Band Festival held on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown. She received this elite honor for high school musicians by placing First Chair in the Flute I section of the Region III Band.
\nShe will perform with the All-State Band at the 2003 PMEA In-Service Conference, scheduled for April 9-12 at the Hershey Conference Center in Hershey. This year\u2019s All-State Band will be conducted by Dr. O. Richard Bundy, director of athletic and concert bands and assistant director of the School of Music at The Pennsylvania State University.
\n\u201cIt is an outstanding honor and unparalleled educational experience for Morgann to attend this festival and represent the Tyrone School District and Tyrone community,\u201d said Kris E. Laird, band director at TAHS. \u201cShe is an extremely talented, hard-working and dedicated student.
\n\u201cShe is, by far, the most talented and successful musician that I have taught in my five years at Tyrone and one of the top musicians to graduate from this school,\u201d continued Laird. \u201cI congratulate her, her family and I am honored to represent her and Tyrone schools as her director at the 2003 State Band Festival.\u201d
\nMorgann began her road to states 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 of 12 flutes in her section.
\nFinally, at the Region III Band Festival, her audition for the State Band earned her first chair.
\nMorgann is 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. She will be one of only 12 flutes from Pennsylvania in the All-State Band.
\nHer career began when she first started playing the flute in third grade.
\n\u201cI really don\u2019t even know why I began playing it,\u201d said Davis. \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 said Davis. \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.
\n\u201cMusic class was a lot different in junior high than it was in elementary school,\u201d she said. \u201cI started enjoying it even more.\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 group is The Dave Matthews Band.
\nRecently, Davis made a commitment to continue her education at Ohio State University, where she\u2019ll study music education and flute performance. For the last few weeks, she has 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 on through my music career.\u201d
\nDavis said that 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":"
For the last nine years, Morgann Davis has put tons of hours in practicing her flute. Sometime she played for just an hour a night, but most of the time, it was more. All that practice has finally paid off. For the first time in six years, the Tyrone Area High School has a student […]<\/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-47096","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\/47096","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=47096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}