A school record of thirteen students made the All-State Orchestra and will perform at the TMEA convention in San Antonio in February.

Students have been practicing since summer with auditions taking place at the end of October. From there, entries are judged against all other entries from throughout the state.

Orchestra director, Julie Blackstock said the competition is very prestigious and some schools are lucky to have one student be accepted.

“For us this is a huge leap from last year,” Blackstock said. “The students in our program are great representatives [of the school].”

Seniors Sarah Jiang and Charlie Lin were ranked first and second on violin with two freshman (Megan Lin and Eunjae Kim) among those who made State.

“Making State as a freshman is unbelievable because not everyone makes it ever throughout high school and to be a part of State in my first year is pretty amazing,” Lin said. “The audition material was really advanced so I had to put in long hours of practice outside of homework but in the end, it was worth it.”

All-State Orchestra members:

Symphony Orchestra

Sarah Jiang (12th grade), violin

Charlie Lin (12), violin

Megan Lin (9), violin

Nathan Le (12), viola

Philharmonic Orchestra

Sabrina Peng (12), violin

Owen Shen (11), cello

Logan Hong (10), cello

String Orchestra

Grace Leung (11), violin

Meghan Le (10), violin

Eunjae Kim (9), viola

Ethan Kim (11), cello

Harps

Ashley Fong (12)

Melina Kehtar (11)