Choral student qualifies for All-State

Choral+student+qualifies+for+All-State

Senior Carissia Arrazolo is the only person at our school to have qualified for All-State Treble Choir.

The All-State process is a series of auditions one must go through to qualify for one of the All-State choirs. There are four auditions, each one getting more rigorous. There are chairs like in orchestra, and you have to earn your place in a certain chair to move onto the next round. But Arrazolo said that the hardest part was the first audition.

“The Pre-Area audition was the most difficult,” Arrazolo said, “They only accepted the top five singers out of twenty.”

Throughout the audition process, Arrazolo felt a mixture of nervousness and excitement. “The most nerve-wracking part was waiting outside of the audition room for my turn to go,” she said. “But once I was inside the room, I took a deep breath and sang the way I had practiced for countless weeks.”

The area audition was the last audition of the series. Arrazolo had to get at least the eleventh chair to move on. This was her third time through the All-State process, and she was determined to make it all the way through. “I wanted so badly to make it into an all-state choir,” she said. “It’s my senior year and it had been a goal I’ve worked toward for so long. I wanted to make my directors proud.”

Arrazolo made ninth chair, which means she qualified for the All-State Treble Choir and would go to the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) convention. “TMEA was a really fun but honestly exhausting experience,” Arrazolo said. “I made friends with a girl from HSPVA. I texted her today.”