November 29, 2018
On October 26th Chaffin jr High went to Bentonville High school, leaving at five thirty in the morning, to audition for the all region orchestra. The orchestra had been working hard for months on end, since the third quarter of the last school year, to prepare for this. Obviously the hard work paid off.
Chaffin had the most students qualify for all region out of any school in the region, beating our closest competitor, Ramsey, by five people. Last year 22 students placed high enough to play in all region and 21 the year before. While this year 64 people from Chaffin auditioned to be in the orchestra and 27 of us made it. That is roughly a 42% success rate. Mr. Pinkston said that is very good, and can’t remember a recent year that we had done that well.
If you’re not in orchestra let me explain how the audition process works. You are given several short pieces the year before, and a few scales. In eighth or ninth grade you are allowed to voluntarily sign up to go and audition. Of those pieces they pick small sections for you to play for the judges, and one scale. In ninth grade you have to sight read (or play it without practicing first.
You compete with kids all over the northern region of Arkansas for a place in the orchestra. You only know what you’ll be playing when you get to all region. When you arrive at the school they post a couple of small sections, and the scale you will be playing. You are given time to practice and eventually you will audician in front of a couple of judges, they will not know who you are or what school you go to. If you make it you get to travel to play with the all region orchestra.
On November ninth we headed up to play in the orchestra and had a great time. We spent the night up there and all of the orchestras that played were amazing. Below there are some pictures from the trip that we took
Congratulations to the students who made it!
Cadet (8th grade)
First violin section
1st chair – Iana Perry
3rd chair – Jessica Kantola
6th chair – Yen Chen
15th chair – Jason Hernandez
16th chair – Andrea Ortega
Second violin section
5th chair – Andrew Diaz
6th chair – Zain Ranad
8th chair – Hunter Mendoza
9th chair – Nancy Folgar
Violas
2nd chair – David Davies
3rd chair – Mackenzie Howald
6th chair – Isabelle Brown
7th chair – David Rotaru
9th chair – Eli Thomas
12th chair- Arianna Ruiz
Cellos
5th chair – Jewell Callahan
6th chair – Lance Roffine
7th chair – Caleb Wachob
8th chair – Yan Li
Basses
1st chair – Isabella Garcia
8th chair – Jacob Reeder
Concert Orchestra (9th grade)
Second violin section
15th chair – Sarah Emmons
18th chair – Trennan Shepherd
Cello
2nd chair – Callie Shannon
Viola
5th chair – Jedidiah Lightner
Bass
6th chair – Macie Horton
9th chair – Tristan Ball
