NTMS seventh-graders make it to all-state band

By Daniel Nash | The Courier-Herald

Two students from North Tapps Middle School have been accepted into the 2010 Washington Music Educators Association (WMEA) of the Year Junior All-State band.

Seventh-grade students Megan Shultz and Kyle Wuerch will perform before a collection of school band, choir and orchestra directors, playing flute and alto saxophone, respectively.

The two will be entering an all-state band rife with changes. This will be the first year seventh-grade musicians participate in an event that was previously participated in exclusively by eighth-grade students.

This will also be the first year the Junior All-State band will play in one location. In previous years, all-state bands were split into east and west bands, one performing in Yakima and the other in Olympia. There are still two bands for the convention, but both will play at the Yakima Convention Center on Feb. 13.

WMEA distributed four play exercises to band directors at the beginning of the year. Four North Tapps students sent audition recordings of the exercises, digitally recorded by band director Del Winterfield in the school’s band room, to WMEA in October.

Shultz and Wuerch made the final cut. They recently received sheet music and now it will be their responsibility during the next two months to practice the pieces on their own time. The majority of members of the all-state band will not even be in the same room until the day of the conference, when they will practice together all day for their evening performance.

Still, neither North Tapps student is worried. Both said they would incorporate the sheet music into their normal practice schedule. If anything, they are frustrated they didn’t receive more prominent places in the band, suspecting that some degree of preference was given to eighth-grade entrants, they said.

“Hopefully next year I’ll get first chair,” Wuerch said.

“I know, I got second,” Shultz said, chuckling. “I’m mad.”

Both students began playing band music in fifth grade. Shultz started on flute, while Wuerch spent six months playing clarinet before switching to the alto saxophone.

“I like the sound of the sax,” he said. “It’s cool how they play it in jazz.”

Shultz and Wuerch are both straight-A students with a wealth of extracurricular activities. Wuerch plays basketball. Shultz has played piano since kindergarten, and participates in ballet, soccer, ski school and yearbook, just to name a few of her activities. She frequently practices flute in the car going to and from her other obligations.

WMEA noted in a press release that many accomplished Washingtonians have participated in past All-State groups, including Pulitzer-Prize winning cartoonist and columnist David Horsey, 2008 National Teacher of the Year Andrea Peterson and jazz saxophonist Kenny G.

To comment on this story or view it online go to www.blscourierherald. Reach Daniel Nash at dnash@courierherald.com or 360-802-8010.

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