Band to perform at TMEA All-Region concert

Senior+Paige+Heffler+practices+for+the+TMEA+All-Region+concert.+The+annual+TMEA+All-region+concert+is+on+Jan.+17+and+18.

photo by Leila Olukoga

Senior Paige Heffler practices for the TMEA All-Region concert. The annual TMEA All-region concert is on Jan. 17 and 18.

Band will perform at the annual TMEA All-Region concert on Jan. 17 and 18 at John H. Guyer High School. The concert will include students across the state that have qualified for All-Region.

Band members had to audition along with students from other schools. Overall, about 1,000 students auditioned and around 300 will be performing.

“This concert is different because you don’t know that many people because of the wide variety in the district,” junior Sanjana Chukkala said. “Also the music is new and you haven’t been working on it with the new group of people for the whole semester like high school band is.”

The band received its music after auditions from guest conductors.

Director Andy Sealy said the band has not practiced for the event because it is a concert put on with minimal rehearsal. The All-Region band will have about six to seven hours of rehearsal on Thursday night, and Friday morning and afternoon, and will then perform the concert Friday night.

“What this concert does do is force the kids to have to learn quickly and rely on people around them to learn quickly, too,” Sealy said. “[This is] because it’s not necessarily the people that they are used to [since] they’re all from different schools.”

The band will also be performing a piece, Pegasus, they had performed a few years before.

“[It] is a song that the marching band had performed in my freshman year,” senior Lauren Baker said. “I think it’s very fun and interesting to perform it again, especially at TMEA.”

This is Baker’s third time qualifying for All-Region. She said she hopes to have a good time and meet people from other bands.

“It’s always very interesting to see how other directors convey the feeling of music and getting to work with people you wouldn’t really work with it at school,” Baker said.