As this is my last passion post of the year I thought that it would be a good idea to throw it all back to where it all started for me and tell my whole music history and how it has impacted my life personally. When I was three years old I went to these music classes for toddlers, called Kindermusic. In those classes we pretty much just all sang and played together for an hour but as we got older we learned how to do actually things like read music, or play the recorder, or glockenspiel. Eventually I grew out of the classes and my parents decided that they wanted me to learn piano, since that was something that they themselves had always wished they could do. So I started taking piano lessons when I was seven years old, but I had already known how to read music by that point so I was already ahead of where most children my age would be.  You can learn piano by ear, but my teacher refused to teach kids who had originally learned that way, so it was a good thing that I knew how to read music! I even remember the first book of piano music that I had ever gotten from my teacher, it comprised of such hits as On top of Old Smokey or Row Your Boat. One of the Schreyer short answer questions on the application was “what book has most impacted you and why?” and I wrote about this book and how it was what initially really got me started in music and how that has influenced my life.  I continued to play piano and then fourth grade came. In my school district**, we started band instruments for school in Fourth grade.  So I told my parents that I wanted to play another instrument.  We went to the Instrument night at my school where you could pick out the instrument that we wanted to play. I ended up choosing the flute because it was “shiny and pretty.”  Little did I know how much a part of my life it would become. I then played in our elementary school band from 4-6^th and I played for our elementary school jazz band in 6^th grade.  In middle school I played in the concert band. In 7^th grade I auditioned for both the jazz band and wind ensemble on flute, but only made the jazz band.  In eighth grade I auditioned for both again and only made the jazz band, however I decided to overcome my stage fright and audition for an improv  solo for jazz band, and I got it! I then won most outstanding soloist at the end of the year at our biggest jazz competition beating out.  At the end of that year I started taking flute lessons, which was a lot later than most other people had started taking lessons.  I then auditioned again the next year for both groups and made 1^st chair for both! I won another soloist award in jazz band that year. Then it was time to audition for the high school wind ensemble, our top ensemble.  I didn’t make the wind ensemble, and the director said that I need to work on my tone quality.  However, when I came back in the fall for the start of school for concert band and did a chair seating for him he said “wow you have great tone! Why didn’t you audition for wind ensemble?” and I said “I did” and then he didn’t say anything else.  So I played for the concert band that year and auditioned again for the wind ensemble and made 1^st chair!  That year we played at the Pennsylvania Music Education Association State Festival.  We played a selection of songs for an hour and we also did a piece with Matt Gallagher, who is the lead trumpet for the Philly pops and the lead-sub for the Philadelphia Orchestra.  We also were invited to do a clinic showcase with Dr. Threinen from, Temple University. Later that year we performed at the Kimmel Center for a USBands festival, which was really cool and got to do a clinic with the director of the Marine Band Corps who told us we were the highlight of the festival, and was extremely impressed with our band.  Then senior year came and I was first chair again for the wind ensemble, and I also decided to join our high school choir and our marching band, the North Penn Marching Knights.  That marching band season we were the Bands of America Class AAAA Regional Champions, the USBands Music in Motion Overall Champions, and the USBands Group V Open National Champions.  Also that year I was in the District Honors and that was probably my favorite performance that I have ever done.  All of the selections were awesome, especially my favorite, Aurora Awakes which our director cried during our performance. For wind ensemble that year I was still first chair. Also that year our program was the National Band Association Division Winner and was a National Finalist (one of eight high school programs in the country).  That year the wind ensemble was lucky enough to perform at the National Associations of Music Education’s Eastern Division Conference.  We played two selections, Niagara Falls and Hymn to a Blue Hour. I had a feature solo in Hymn to a Blue Hour which was pretty awesome. I remember my last concert, which was really sad since this was the end of an era and a way of life for me and I miss my band friends, the concerts, and most especially the music.

**Important aside about how my school district works that seems to confuse many people: My school district, North Penn, graduates over 1,000 students every year and they have a weird system for dealing with that many students.  Elementary School is from K-6, Middle School is 7-9, and High School is 10-12. And hopefully that will resolve any confusion anyone may have!