More than 780 of the most musically talented high school students in the Eastern region of the United States have been selected to perform in the 2019 NAFME All-Eastern Honors Ensembles.
Selected to perform in the All-Eastern Honors Ensembles (Orchestra) is Reid Simmons, Trumpet, from Twin Valley High School, Elverson.
With assistance from his music teacher, Joel Deardorf, this exceptional student will prepare remarkably challenging music that he will perform under the leadership of prominent conductors in this biennial event. Students will spend three days rehearsing with one of five conductors during the Eastern Division Conference of The National Association for Music Education to be held in Pittsburgh in preparation for performances April 7, 2019.
The NAFME All-Eastern Honors Ensembles, consisting of a concert band, symphony orchestra, mixed chorus, treble chorus, and jazz ensemble, are organized by members of The National Association for Music Education. The concert band and symphony orchestra will each have approximately one hundred fifty instrumentalists, the jazz ensemble will have eighteen instrumentalists, the treble chorus will have one hundred twenty vocalists, and the mixed chorus will have approximately three hundred twenty vocalists. Student participation from each state is determined by a percentage of the total NAFME Eastern Division membership.
Each of the state music educators associations in the Eastern Division (CT, DC, DE, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, RI, PA, VT, Europe) oversee the selection process in their state during the fall of the year before the event and compile ranked lists of recommended juniors and seniors for consideration. The method used to compile the lists varies from state to state, although all recommended students must have been selected to participate in their home all-state festivals.
The committee builds the ensembles from the state presidents’ ranked lists, trying to mimic the state population percentages in each group.