Congratulations to the nine Harriton instrumentalists who recently qualified for the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association’s highly selective District Band and Orchestra! PMEA divides the state of Pennsylvania into twelve districts. Harriton and other schools in Montgomery and Bucks counties comprise District 11.

Junior Peri Leavitt (french horn) and sophomore Dayita Sharma (clarinet) qualified for PMEA District 11 Band. Five violinists qualified for District 11 Orchestra: Juniors Dan Liu and Elizabeth Morgan, sophomore Emily Roby, and freshmen Joyce Gu and Catherine Liu. Freshmen Odyssey Gabon (string bass) and Sang-o Park (cello) also qualified for District 11 Orchestra.

Seating auditions for both ensembles will soon take place. After these auditions the many talented musicians will be ranked and seated according to their skill-level.

On its website, the PMEA states that their mission is “to advance music education by encouraging excellence in the study, teaching, and making of music.” PMEA is highly competitive. Prior to the initial auditions, students prepared a solo and numerous scales. Each instrument was assigned a specific piece of music, so that the musicians could be compared fairly.  Unlike most auditions, however, all of the musicians were called at one time.

Catherine Liu, one of 127 violinists auditioning, shares, “Since everyone had to convene at the same time, there were 127 violinists warming up in the school gym simultaneously. For other auditions that I have done in the past, everyone received a specific time for when their audition was so there were usually only around 10 musicians warming up at once.”

Being surrounded by so many fellow students competing for the same spot can be pretty overwhelming, but Catherine handled it with the poised grace of a musician.  She confesses, “It was definitely intimidating to hear and see so many musicians knowing that we were all auditioning for the same thing, especially since I am a freshman, but at the end of the day it was just a really great experience of meeting fellow music lovers.”

Catherine looks forward to her second audition (for chair seating), and hopes to improve on her first.

Being part of a PMEA musical ensemble is an honor. To the nine qualifying students: Harriton is immensely proud of you.  Your hard work, dedication, and passion for music serve as inspiration to many. We wish you luck at your impending performances!