National High School Honors Ochestra

         

         

          The most exhilarating journey I've ever undergone with my violin was the National High School Honors Orchestra (NHSHO). This orchestra is through ASTA or the American String Teachers Association and is one of the greatest honors you can receive. Not everyone can just get in though, you must send in an audition almost a year before the conference. It is a nationwide audition and hundreds of string players, brass players, and even wind players audition. This orchestra only takes place every other year and it's only for juniors and seniors in high school, so really you only have one chance to get in. The first I ever learned of this orchestra was when my older sister auditioned for a spot. She was only a junior in high school and she played a section of Mendelssohn violin concerto first movement along with another piece called Scene De Ballet by Charles De Bariot. In just a few months a letter came, it was from NHSHO. We all held our breath as Megan gingerly slid her finger under the flap of the letter. She slowly pulled out the letter. She had been accepted! That spring we all jumped on a plane to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The performance was the best part of the whole trip; they played West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein. It sounded just like the movie it was incredible. Little did I know that four years later I would be trying out to go to Atlanta, Georgia, for the same exact orchestra. I auditioned with the same pieces my sister did and a few months after I sent in my audition cd I received a letter from NHSHO. I now knew how my sister must have felt when her letter had come. I slowly opened the letter, taking care not to rip the envelope, and pulled out the printed letter inside. I had been accepted!  I was going to be one of the eighty-seven orchestra members out of the fifteen hundred students who had auditioned.  In February, we all boarded a plane set out for Atlanta, Georgia. The hotel I stayed in for the conference was a memory in itself. There were forty floors and eight different elevators; when you looked up it seemed like the hotel went on for forever.  After three days of grueling three hour rehearsals it was finally time for the concert. This was it the moment we had all been waiting for and it was a huge success! We played Tchaikovsky's fourth Symphony. We had hardly finished the last note and the audience was on its feet clapping and whistling. This was truly the most amazing journey I've ever taken!