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Tuned up! The area’s best high school musicians prepare for All-State Festival

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Nerves won’t stop Fiona Reed from doing her absolute best at an audition.

Fiona, a Stowe High School sophomore, plays the flute.

She remembers standing outside her first All-State Music Festival audition last year. She could hear the person ahead of her. That person was doing really well, and that made her nervous.

Her older brother was with her for moral support.

“You have every right to be here,” Fiona remembers him telling her.

When she entered the audition room, flute in hand, her fears dissipated. She let her instrument do the talking.

Vermont’s 2016 All-State Music Festival kicks off Wednesday, May 4, at Missisquoi Valley Union High School in Swanton with a parade at 6 p.m.

The following three days, Thursday through Saturday, music will fill the gymnasium and auditorium as student performers practice their pieces, culminating in three concerts: A scholarship concert Thursday, May 5, at 8 p.m. in the auditorium; a jazz concert Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium; and an orchestra, band and chorus concert Saturday at 2 p.m. in the gymnasium.

Joining Fiona Reed at the festival will be several Harwood Union High School musicians, including Matt Skelly, a singer and saxophonist, and Chloe Riven, a clarinetist.

Here’s a look inside the lives of these promising musicians.

Fiona Reed

Music has always been important for Fiona.

Many musicians grace the branches of the Reed family tree: her mother plays the piano; her older sister, the flute; her uncle is a jazz saxophonist.

Music was ever-present in Fiona’s life. As a child, she sang in church. She has taken flute and piano lessons.

“Music is always going to have a place in my life,” she said.

Even today, when her schedule is brimming with her studies and extracurricular activities, she makes time for music.

In addition to being a musician, Fiona is a cross-country runner and she is involved in Stowe High’s drama program.

Her days can be long and stressful. She sometimes gets home between 8:30 and 9 p.m. after a long day of school and cross-country practice, and still has homework to do.

Sometimes, she gets frustrated with the work and just wants to go to bed, but she perseveres.

Come festival season, she adds another activity to that already-full plate. She participates in the Northeast District Music Festival, the All-State Music Festival and the New England Music Festival.

Last year, Fiona said, she learned her lesson about practicing for the All-State Festival.

By the time she got to all-states, she had already been through the district festival, and she thought it would be similarly easy.

She was wrong.

For the district festival, Fiona didn’t need to practice much; there was plenty of time to practice right before the festival concert. She glanced at the music, and she was fine.

All-state, however, is a different animal. People arrive prepared. Fiona was able to catch up, but she decided to practice much more this year.

Looking to the future, Fiona said she “contemplated a career in music for two seconds.” The field is too competitive for her taste.

“I want to just enjoy” music, she said.

Instead, she is considering a biology-related career. Her sister is in medical school, and she enjoys talking about it with her.

But she still has a few years to figure it out.

Matt Skelly

Matt Skelly, a Harwood junior who lives in Waterbury, loves all things music.

He plays saxophone in the band and has taken piano lessons much of his life.

Matt’s most precious instrument, though, is his voice. And he uses it as much as he can, whether that is as part of a Harwood choir, in the band or in a musical production.

“It can be hard sometimes,” Matt said of balancing his schoolwork and musical projects, “but it’s definitely worth it.”

His schedule is fairly light, with a heavy focus on music and a history class he’s taking online.

Matt plans to study music in college, and that is partially why he participates in all the festivals he can. Each one rounds out his resume a little more.

In addition to the All-State Music Festival, Skelly has been part of the Winooski Valley Music Festival and the New England Music Festival.

He doesn’t get nervous about singing auditions. “It’s kind of just instinctual,” he said; he just goes in and sings his part.

Instrumental auditions — most recently on alto sax — are much more difficult for him.

At All-States, he earned an honorable mention for a vocal scholarship, which allows him to perform in a scholarship concert the first night of the festival.

When Matt gets copies of the festival’s music program, he tries to find recordings of the songs, then listens to them over and over again to get the feel of the music.

After a while, he starts singing along with the recording. By the time he gets to the festival, he’s practically an expert.

“It’s a growing experience as an artist,” he said. “Even if you don’t get in, there’s always next year.”

Chloe Riven

Though Chloe doesn’t plan to study music in college, she wants it always to be part her life.

Chloe, a Harwood Union junior, plays the clarinet, and has taken private clarinet lessons.

Rather than music, she hopes to pursue a career in nursing. She loves her human anatomy class.

Music is something she does for fun. That includes the Winooski Valley Music Festival, the All-State Music Festival and the New England Music Festival.

Chloe says the auditions aren’t too difficult, although “all-state kicks it up a notch.”

For the auditions, instrumentalists need only memorize a few scales, including the chromatic scale — every note possible to play on the instrument — and a couple of other scales, both the sharp and flat versions.

The festivals also have an audition piece, which this year was Mozart’s “Concerto Op. 107” for clarinet.

Chloe doesn’t tend to get nervous until she gets into the audition room, face-to-face with two judges who know the instrument well.

The best way to get through an audition is to just let your fingers go, Chloe said. If you’ve practiced enough, they’ll know what to do.

Chloe’s audition earned her a spot in the first clarinet section.

Once she gets the festival music package, Chloe likes to listen to the pieces before she tries playing them. Once she gets the rhythm down, she’ll practice once or twice a week, as her schedule allows.

She also has a weekly private lesson, and her teacher will help her master the piece.

When she gets to the all-states this year, her third, she’ll be ready to play.

“Overall, it’s a fun festival,” she said.

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