To understand the beauty of music, you must accept an open range of creativity into your mind. While living up to this idea can be rather difficult for some indvidiuals, Senior Susan Martin is a student who is able to live up to this concept’s expectations. I have covered her before in my previous articles and have expressed how accomplished she is when it comes to her music talent. It is only expected that, once again, Susan has shown how gifted she is in terms of music.

During this past Saturday, Susan played at the Southwest Regional Honor Band alongside other members of the regional band and astonished the audience with her musical performance. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the event, but, knowing Susan, I am certain the performance was amazing. Now that her time with the Southwest Regional Honor Band has ended, she will now be moving on to audition for the All-State Honor Band as a next step for her high school music career.

After hearing of this, I found Susan and spoke with her to learn more about her experience at the Southwest Regional Honor Band and her future in music:

Q: What piece(s) did you play at the Southwest Regional Honor Band?

A: We played Dominion of the Sky, Polka and Fugue from Schwanda the Bagpiper, Our Yesterday’s Lengthen like Shadows, and Coat of Arms.

Q: I hear you are planning to audition for the All-State Honor Band. Can you elaborate on what being a part of the All-State Band entails?

A: I am not entirely sure what All-State will entail, but I suspect it will be similar to regionals in that, once in, we will be in charge of preparing the concert pieces and then having a concert.

Q: What are you planning for your auditions? As in, what kind of pieces or performance?

A: From what I understand, this audition should not be much different from regionals. I’ll be preparing some already provided etudes and my scales.

Q: What are you planning on pursuing music as career?

A: I do not plan in pursuing music as a career, but that certainly does not mean that I will stop being involved in music.

Q: What was your favorite moment at the Southwest Regional Honor Band last weekend?

A: My favorite part of regionals was the final concert and being able to hear all of our hard work pay off.

Knowing how to professionally play music is a achievement many students strive to attain, and to reach this level of skill expresses the high amount of dedication and patience the individual possesses.

Susan is wonderfully talented and skilled individual, and this performance with the Southwest Regional Honor Band is just another item to add to her list of accomplishments. I expect to hear about future music accomplishments from Susan, and hopefully more information will come about the outcome of her audition for the the All-State Honor Band. Congratulations, Susan!