Strings to success

After two years of COVID-accommodating festivals, the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association (PMEA) returned to the regular three-day festival format for this year’s District Orchestra. Last year, auditions were held online in video format and the festival was a day long, with around six hours of rehearsal. This year, auditions were held in person, and the festival lasted three days with a culmination of more than ffteen hours of rehearsal. While this return to normal scheduling was exciting for participants, it also evoked stress throughout the musician’s auditioning and performing process. On December 10, 2022, hundreds of highschool students from Bucks and Montgomery County attended auditions at Upper Dublin High School for PMEA’s District 11 Orchestra. Around ten students from LM auditioned on string, woodwind, brass, and percussion instruments alike. The audition process entailed preparing a solo piece and nine scales, from which random excerpts and scales would be chosen at the audition. Also,