Since the start of second semester, orchestra has been preparing to compete in the annual UIL competition that runs Tuesday through Friday at Independence High School and Reedy High School.  

“We’ve been doing a lot to help them prepare,” orchestra director Julie Blackstock said. “Almost all of our groups have had sectionals before or after school for at least 5 weeks. We’ve done a bunch of playing tests, checkoff/passoff tests in addition to those sectionals and try to give as close to immediate feedback as possible with it.”

Blackstock thinks orchestra will have a successful UIL process, but there are still some things she is worried about.

“I’m worried about students taking it completely seriously,” Blackstock said. “I know most of our students do, but, it is a reflection of our program. I’m mainly worried because one of our groups has to perform super early on the morning, but I feel confident that they’ll decide to rise to the occasion and we’ll get it done.”         

The students competing are ready to see the outcome of their practice.   

“I’m actually super excited to see how all the pieces turn out,” junior Sneha Sundar said. “I think all the people in our orchestra have been putting in so much hard work and I want to see how that actually sounds on actual performance day and during UIL it’ll be really cool to see.”

Excited for UIL day, sophomore Christina Le still has some worries regarding the pieces that they will be performing.

“The only thing that I would say i’m nervous about is getting what the music wants to get across when we perform,” Le said. “Like [Blackstock] said, the judges shouldn’t be judging us solely, they should be experiencing a concert. So that’s what I’ve been nervous about.”