Three Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts student musicians were named to the Arkansas South Region Orchestra.
Senior Amanda Navarro of Hot Springs and juniors Alex Hernandez of Conway and Gisselle Ellington of North Little Rock auditioned for the band on Oct. 29 at Mills High School in Little Rock. They participated in the South Region Orchestra Clinic on Nov. 4-5 at Conway High School. Navarro and Hernandez both performed violin in the orchestra while Ellington was a member of the cello section.
The three students were among 500 students from the south region who auditioned for the orchestra, including six other ASMSA students. They had only a short period between the region auditions and the region clinic, said Dr. Nathan Groot, a music instructor and string ensemble director at ASMSA.
“They only had a week to learn the music so we found a lot of time to work one-on-one to prepare!” Groot said. “The students rehearsed for more than nine hours with Texas conductor/guest clinician Desiree Oversee and performed works by George Gershwin, Rossano Galante and John Williams for a full audience.”
Being selected for the region orchestra also qualified the students to audition for the All-State Orchestra in the spring.