Three students placed in state after auditioning for the All-State jazz band, with senior Nathan Brooks first in alto saxophone, junior Reuben Mathews fourth in trumpet, and junior Sudhir Sadhu eighth in trumpet.

“It’s harder to make it into the All-State jazz program than it is the other all state groups simply because of the numbers,” band director Jamie Weaver said. “For example, there are only four alto sax that will make it, so Nathan Brooks is number one out of four in the state.”

Students like Brooks have been anticipating making it to the state level since the beginning of their high school career.

“It’s really a dream come true because as a freshman, I didn’t make it and I was kind of beating myself up for it,” Brooks said. “I had the dream as a freshman to get to this point and it’s just pretty unreal.”

Participants were required to prepare three pieces of music in the jazz style, as well as improvise during their audition.

“Us three trained so hard and put so much time and effort over the summer and during school just to prepare for this,” Sudhir said. “We went in with the mentality that we have something to accomplish, we’re gonna go out and do it, and represent our school.”

Those who placed will attend a Texas Music Educators Association convention in San Antonio in February to rehearse state music and perform a concert with other state musicians.

“We have a region concert coming up for the regular process of jazz region, where they’ll hand us out our state level music,” Mathews said. “They’re really hard charts and we just have to read our part and be on top of it, because the last thing we want is to be embarrassed at the state level.”