By Kylie Schmitt

Beginning in early December, auditions for the PMEA District 10 Band were held at Parkland High School. Three Southern Lehigh High School students were selected for this prestigious band. Seniors Eric Boyd and Matt Delsordo, and junior Luke Simons were all chosen to participate in the 2015 PMEA District 10 Band concert held on Friday, January 9 and Saturday, January 10, hosted at Exeter High School.

Over 800 students from a seven-county area had the opportunity to audition for the this very competitive concert band. Around 100 students were selected. Boyertown, Blue Mountain, Easton, Emmaus, and Freedom are just a few of the other schools that were represented at the PMEA District 10 concert. The band was guest conducted by Dr. Andrew Yozviak, the Director of Bands at West Chester University.

“It was a great weekend. The students were extremely professional, worked hard through two long days of rehearsal and presented two very musical concerts,” Dr. Yozviak said. “So very proud of their efforts!”

Boyd, DelSordo, and Simons decided to audition this year after successfully auditioning in years past. Boyd, who has been playing the trumpet since fourth grade, said he was not nervous going into the audition since he knew what to expect from the year before.

“I decided to audition again since it worked out well for me in the past. This year I had a great time,” he said. “I really enjoyed the guest conductor Andrew Yozviak. He was awesome and really fun to be around.”

Each student auditioned alone in front of a panel of music teachers. The songs were picked by the judges for students to play and each instrument was assigned a different song. This year’s song for auditioning trumpeters was the Hummel Trumpet Concerto composed by Johann Nepomuk.

The concert lasted about an hour and a half. They played four songs and ended with a four-piece movement called Shadow Catcher composed by Eric Ewazen.

“I think the show went really well,” DelSordo said. “Everything sounded great and people really seemed to enjoy it.”

The first night of the concert, students re-auditioned to see if they could move on to regions. Luke Simons was selected participate in the Region V Band. The concert will be hosted at East Stroudsburg South High School on February 11-14. From there the students go through a similar process and can audition to be a part of the state band.

“I have always had a love of music,” Simons said. “I am inspired by it and plan to go on and have a career in it.”

Southern Lehigh instrumental music teacher Mr. Doug Bolasky said the the show went very well, especially since before Thursday these people had never met each other and had to come together as a group.