In the Ancient Greek civilization, youths who performed with unusual skill were prized beyond compare. All-State Orchestra acts as a remnant of this heritage, uniting the top young players across the state to practice and perform in a weekend of collective musical congruity. Our campus is honored to instruct four of these performers, all of whom made the top possible orchestra at the competition. Hannah Phillips, Chris Lei, Ben Lee and Lyric Foster are an honor to our campus and have created a legacy for themselves that few high school students can match.

The inspiration for such musical aspiration comes from different places depending on the person. For Chris, this was a desire to live up to his friends.

“I was influenced by church friends. There were a group of guys a little older than me and they all played viola and took lessons from the same teacher. So I decided to become a part of that.” Lei said.

Lyric had a bit of an interesting anecdote for the commencement of his musical career.

“I started music 7 years ago. All of my friends were in orchestra and so I decided to join. When I first joined orchestra class I picked the wrong  instrument, I thought the cello was called the bass. Apparently it wasn’t. So here I am.”

Despite this interesting misstep, music now drives Lyric in a profound way.

“Music is pretty much everything I do. Four of my 6 electives are music classes. I play on majoring in music in college. Ideally I’d like to play in the London Symphony. Without music I’d just get bored.”

So what is the driving force behind this passion for song?

‘I’m pretty naturally musical. It’s a good outlet for stress relief. It’s cool to have a musical perspective, to be able to have the perspective to interpret music.” Lei said

This perspective seems multifaceted, even manifesting itself as an ineffable sensation.

“I just feel so alive. when we were playing the Firebird everything is building into all this chaos and then it just rests you know all this chaos came together and rested on this one magical note and it really brought the room alive.” Foster said.

For young musicians of this caliber, All State is something of a mecca.

“I would say All State is a really meaningful experience. Any time you get the best musicians in the state playing together, that’s going to create something amazing.” Ben Lee, Senior, said.

“It was better than any other musical experience I’ve ever had. The moment we started rehearsing you could just tell that everyone knew their music.” Foster said.

Highest congratulations to all these incredibly talented musicians, The Colt looks forward to your All-State performance and your musical future.