McKinney North Band Students Earn All-State Honors

MCKINNEY, Texas - Jan. 15, 2015 - PRLog -- Congratulations are in order for eight McKinney North High School Band students who earned places in the Texas Music Educators’ Association (TMEA) All-State Band, All-State Jazz Band, and All-State Choir.  These students will attend the 2015 TMEA convention to be held February 11-14 in San Antonio.  They will participate with other students from across the state in several day-long, full-ensemble rehearsals and their experience will culminate in a concert performance on Saturday, February 14.

In early November, bass trombonist JaTarius Smith and guitarist Chris Cain learned of their success earning a place in the All-State Jazz Band.  Smith earned 4^th place and will perform in the All-State Jazz Ensemble II, while Cain earned top honors as the best jazz guitarist in the state of Texas. He will perform with All-State Jazz Ensemble I.

On January 10, clarinetist Kyle Kung, alto saxophonist Kyle Jurovic, and percussionist Jacob Wagner earned places in the class 5A All-State Band, and tubaist Mikael Abera placed in the class 6A All-State Band.  These students will learn their final places after one more grueling round of judging at the TMEA convention.

The Bulldog Band is also proud to count two of their own among those earning places in the All-State Choir.  Congratulations to Bulldog Band bassoonist Annie Brenkus, who earned placement as a soprano vocalist in the All-State Women’s Choir, and percussionist Daniel Cockrell, a tenor vocalist who earned a place in the All-State Mixed Choir.

Achieving a place in one of these All-State groups is no easy task.  Overall, less than 3% of students who participate in the process actually win All-State honors.  In 2014, more than 55,000 student musicians across the state participated by individually performing prescribed musical selections before a panel of judges who evaluate and rank the students’ performances.  In the band program alone, almost 31,000 students started the process, and only 514 earned places in one of five ensembles.  Academically, these students are top performers as well, with an average SAT score of 1829 among “All-Staters,” compared against the 2013 National and State SAT average scores of 1498 and 1437 respectively.
(Source: https://www.tmea.org/assets/pdf/2014_All_State_Report.pdf)

MNHS Band Boosters is also proud to extend its congratulations to Band Directors Alan Harkey, Josh Kurzweil, and Michael Reed, Choir Directors Steven Nelms and Rachel Gillispie, and the private instructors who invest countless hours teaching and encouraging our students, not just in their musicianship, but in their growth toward future leadership.