Tyrone Area High School hasn\u2019t seen a state band designee since Pam Detwiler received the designation more than five years ago for her work on the bass clarinet. It has been a lot longer for the students at Bellwood-Antis.
\nBut according to the band directors at each school, the drought may soon be over.
\nToday, 17 students will make the trek to Altoona for the all-important auditions for a regional band seat. The auditions open the programming for the 2003 District 6 Band Festival, held by the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s going to be some tough competition,\u201d said Chris Laird, band director at TAHS, who noted 11 TAHS students qualified for today\u2019s round. \u201cBut our students are focused and ready to show the district what they have. We should probably take about half our students on to the next level.\u201d
\nGreg Roberts, band director at B-A, echoed Laird\u2019s thoughts.
\n\u201cThe competition will be stiff, but I think we\u2019re going to come out okay,\u201d said Roberts who is taking six B-A students to the initial competition,
\nThose attending from this year\u2019s TAHS class include Rob Rich, Adam Roth, Kurt Diehl, Katie Osterhout, Morris Reese, Joe Houck, Morgann Davis, Gretchen Kreckel, Chasity Beckwith, Liz Kreckel and Alicia Rodriguez.
\nEmily Sharer, Bethany McGeary, Rachel Mattern, Glenn Henry, Lauren Otto and Megan Butterbaugh will represent B-A.
\nAccording to Laird, the Wednesday night auditions are important for seating of the band for the rest of the week\u2019s performances and for determining which students will move on to compete in the regional competition, scheduled for March.
\n\u201cAll the band directors from the schools in the district will break up and be designated which instrument section they will judge,\u201d said Laird. \u201cIt\u2019s fairly tough competition and just a few advance to the regional competition. We look pretty good going in. We\u2019ll have to see what happens.\u201d
\nFollowing the selection of the district winners, the festival will continue with two solid days of practice, leading up to a banquet on Saturday, followed by a 2 p.m. concert.
\nIt is scheduled to be held at the Altoona High School Auditorium. Cost of admission is $4 for adults and $2 for students. Tickets are available at the door.
\nStudents selected as district finalists will move on to competition at Windber High School on March 12 through 15 at the regional level, and a state competition will follow.
\n\u201cI\u2019m excited with the opportunities we have this year,\u201d said Laird. \u201cLast year, we took five to districts and normally have between two and five students going each year. We\u2019re pleased that we\u2019re taking 11.\u201d
\nIn B-A last year, Roberts said six students qualified to go on to districts. He said the Blue Devils normally send about eight musicians each year.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re really limited with the number of students we can send strictly because of our size,\u201d said Roberts. \u201cI\u2019d like to take 15 or 20 students each year because we have the talent. But that\u2019s just not feasible.\u201d
\nAccording to Laird, students from 40 school districts in Blair, Bedford, Somerset and Cambria will participate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tyrone Area High School hasn\u2019t seen a state band designee since Pam Detwiler received the designation more than five years ago for her work on the bass clarinet. It has been a lot longer for the students at Bellwood-Antis. But according to the band directors at each school, the drought may soon be over. Today, […]<\/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-47479","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\/47479","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=47479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}