Chosen for their musical talents, 13 LZ students attended the All State IMEA music competition in Peoria, Illinois this past weekend.

“To prepare I practiced the audition material a lot,” Kevin Snyder, senior bass player, said.   “For about a month prior I would be practicing, and I would have my private teacher as well as any other bass players help me learn. With any music, I always practice super slow, then speed up the tempo until it’s at a good level.”

If interested, students can audition for IMEA and if they make the cut, they attend Illinois Music Education Association. Once at the event, they audition again for placement in the band, orchestra, or choir. According to Becky Bieber, senior flutist, the students had to prepare two études, one scale sheet for the audition. The audition also included sight reading, but she couldn’t really prepare for that. 

“Auditions were all day.” Bieber said. “Friday we had our rehearsal in the group we were in (I was in honors). We rehearsed all day. Saturday we rehearsed in the morning and had the concert in the afternoon. From our school I was the only one in band, there were three in orchestra, and six in choir.”

Melanie McGrath, junior singer-songwriter, unlike Snyder and Bieber, had to prepare and record a song for the competition.

“I already had my song recorded but at IMEA I did a performance,” McGrath said.  “So I had to rehearse for that. My performance was with (seniors) Mara Nasui (singing with McGrath), Kevin Gallagher (playing guitar), and Zack Keller (playing cajon) while I played piano and sang so we had to rehearse for that performance. While I was there I performed and went to songwriting workshops. The kids there for band/orchestra/choir had rehearsals all three days and a big performance on Saturday.”

McGrath performed her original song “As If” at the IMEA composition showcase concert, but the band, orchestra, and choir students performed concert music. At the final concert, the band and orchestra honor students performed a piece by Respighi called “The Pines of Rome“.

Though McGrath attended IMEA last year as a sophomore and took third place, she shared a similar experience while she attended the competition and ended up taking first place.

“This experience was awesome because I got to work with a professional singer-songwriter, named Sam Stryke, who workshopped my songs and taught me a lot about the music business,” McGrath said. “I also got to be around a lot of other teens who share the same passion for music that I have. I definitely want to continue music as a career but I have no idea where music will take me. I’m still trying to figure that out so I’m just going to keep working hard on my music and keep performing. Hopefully I will go to college for music but we’ll see where it takes me.”

For both Snyder and Bieber, it was their first time attending and both said they had a great learning experience.

“I do plan to continue music as a career, actually in music education teaching kids how to play,” Snyder said. “I have some auditions coming up, wish me luck. I took a lot away from the experience. To make great music or great anything, you gotta put a lot of work into it and really love what you’re doing. The best musicians are also the most humble, and knowing that if you mess up it’s not the end of the world helps with nerves. We did a lot of stuff there. To sum up, we rehearsed for about six hours a day if not more, ate a lot of food paid for by District 95, played card games, and Mr. Pensik wiped his cheesy hands on our white towel and we were like, ‘wow, thanks, Pensik’. He’s cool though.”

Although Bieber does not want to continue with music as a career, she does want to continue playing in college.

“I took away a lot. I learned that lots of practice sure does pay off.” Bieber said. “Also I learned that even though every students was from a different place, we were actually a lot alike. It was cool how even though we came all over the state, we all connected through music and were able to perform as one group.”