On Saturday, December 7, orchestra and band students from Bridgewater-Raritan High School auditioned for a spot in the Central Jersey Music Educators Association (CJMEA) Orchestra or Band.
The event brought together student musicians specializing in various string, woodwind and brass instruments at Edison High School. The audition process included performing three scales, up to two excerpts from a musical solo piece and a sight-reading piece provided during the audition.
From the BRHS Orchestra, Amay Naik, Anastasia Gatilova, Josh Li, Soobin Kim, Vikrant Khanvilkar and Christine Xu were accepted into the ensemble. From the BRHS Band, Saraansh Rawat, Jack Lee, Ethan Wei, Julian DiMaggio, Iswer Prasad Harinarayan, Ananth Raman, Fisayo Ogunsulire, James Krempasky, Agastya Shahane and Jacky Pan were all accepted.
Sophomore Vikrant Khanvilkar reflects on his experience auditioning. “This year’s regionals, like any other year, was quite fun. Practicing the excerpts and scales may take a lot of time, but it’s certainly worth it when seeing the results at the end. Overall, the music selected was great and so was the experience!” he said.
Junior Amay Naik also shared his personal experience. “This year’s region auditions was probably the most mentally challenging out of the past four region auditions I’ve given across all formats, since I had to take the SAT the morning of. Despite this, I tried as much as possible to deliver the best audition I could with my out of tune string,” he said.
Sophomore Jack Lee shares his feelings on his acceptance. “I’m very glad I was able to get in and be part of this experience. It’s nice to see the results of the practice I put in, and I’m excited to be meeting and work with many talented performers,” he said.
Orchestra Director, Mrs. Griggs, also reflected on what she thought about the auditions compared to last year. “My advice would be to start working on the excerpts as soon as it is posted on the website. The excerpt is never long, but you need to really familiarize yourself with it… You have got to score almost perfect on scales. And you know, sight reading is always going to be hard…I’m happy with this year’s student’s results. Even for those who didn’t make it, their scores looked really good. I have no complaints,” she said.
