From April 6-9, select music students will be traveling to the Kalahari Resort in the Poconos Mountains to perform at the 2022 All State Festival, where students from each region of Pennsylvania gather to play a combined concert.

From the Fine Arts Department, there will be seven students in total traveling to the resort. For orchestra, Lukas Caracciolo on trumpet and Sarah Saylor on string bass. For band, Adreonna McConnell on flute and Tyler Latten on saxophone. For jazz band, Jack Kuhns on piano. For chorus, Jane Fox on soprano one and Luke Rokosky on bass one.

According to their directors, these students have put in a tremendous amount of work in order to make it to each division of competition, including the one they’re currently at.

“I wish everybody understood the years of work it takes to get to that level and then to make it through to get to States,” band and jazz band director Larry Detwiler said.

“My advice to those debating on trying— is never give up. I wasn’t even going to do Districts for band, but decided whatever – it’s my last year and I’ve never done it before, so I should just do it. Now I’m where I’m at, keep practicing and believe in yourself,” senior Adreonna McConnell said.

The directors of each department describe their feelings in one word—proud.

“Proud would be the best word because knowing the kids that are there and knowing what it took for them to get there, it’s a lot of work. It’s just a lot of work. They practice a lot, they learn the music, they make recordings, they send the recordings in. They did all of that work to get there and were successful doing that work,” Detwiler said.

“I’m just proud because it’s not just practicing for that audition, it’s something they started back in fourth grade when they started their instrument playing and they have worked every year to get better and better and better until they meet that level,” orchestra director Kelly Detwiler said.

Although the Detwilers were proud of their students for taking the time they did to reach the level of competition they did, choral director Kelly Sipes had a different approach as to of why she is proud of her students.

“I am so extremely proud of them so the one word would be proud. There are certain things that they learned here musically whether it’s working on counting rhythms or reading pitches better or even musicianship. Something they have instilled in themselves is work ethic. Both of them are extremely talented but they worked very very hard on their own and spent many many hours to get to the point at which they are,” Sipes said.