More than 800 of the most musically talented high school students in the Eastern region of the United States have been selected to perform in the 2017 NAfME All-Eastern Honors Ensembles.
Selected to perform in the All-Eastern Honors Band is Dane Becker, 18, from Bowers, who attends the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts (Charter Arts), located in Bethlehem. Becker, an accomplished pianist, will perform Symphonic Dances from West Side Story with the band.
With assistance from faculty from the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts’ award-winning music department, this exceptional student will prepare remarkably challenging music that he will perform under the leadership of prominent conductors in this biennial event. Students will spend three days rehearsing with one of five conductors during the Eastern Division Conference of The National Association for Music Education to be held in Atlantic City, New Jersey in preparation for performances on April 7 and 8.
The NAfME All-Eastern Honors Ensembles, consisting of a concert band, symphony orchestra, mixed chorus, treble voice chorus, and jazz ensemble, are organized by members of The National Association for Music Education. The concert band and symphony orchestra will each have approximately one hundred fifty instrumentalists, the jazz ensemble will have twenty instrumentalists, the treble voice chorus will have one hundred twenty vocalists, and the mixed chorus will have approximately three hundred fifty vocalists. Student participation from each state is determined by a percentage of the total NAfME Eastern Division membership, with no state given less than two percent representation.
Each of the state music educators associations in the Eastern Division (CT, DC, DE, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, RI, PA, VT, Europe) oversee the selection process in their state during the Spring and early Fall of the year before the event and compile ranked lists of recommended juniors and seniors for consideration. The method used to compile the lists varies from state to state, although all recommended students must have participated (or will be participating in) their home all-state festivals.
The committee builds the ensembles from the state presidents’ ranked lists, trying to mimic the state population percentages in each group. The Jazz Ensemble, due to its size and instrumentation, is formed to represent every state in the division.
The 2017 NAfME All-Eastern Honors Ensembles will perform for an audience of thousands on April 7 and 8, in the Adrian Phillips Ballroom in Historic Boardwalk Hall, and the Atlantic City Convention Center (Jazz) in Atlantic City, New Jersey. For program and ticket information visit www.nafme-eastern.org.
