John Cooper band and choir students perform in TPSMEA All-State Concert

THE WOODLANDS, Texas - Fourteen choral students from The John Cooper School and nine instrumental students were selected to perform in the Texas Private School Music Educators Association (TPSMEA) All-State Choir and Band, made up of high school students from across the state who audition to be selected. The choir and band students attended workshops and clinics, January 29-31 at Texas State University and performed a concert in Evans Auditorium on campus on Saturday evening. In the business portion of the convention, Cooper Director of Choirs Rae Moses was elected to the TPSMEA Board of Directors to the position of Vice President-Vocal/Choral.

Cooper Singers Selected As Soloists

This year, 18 choir students were selected to the Region 3 All-Region Honor Choir by submitting recordings as part of the audition process. “For the All-Region Choir concert that was held at Strake Jesuit in January, the guest conductor selected two solo groups to perform,” Moses said. “One group consisted of all Cooper singers and three of the five in the second group were also Cooper students.” Fourteen singers ranked high enough to advance to the final round and all were named to the TPSMEA All-State Choir.

Forty singers are selected from each of the four vocal sections for membership into the 160-member TPSMEA All-State Choir. “Cooper had a very balanced showing by vocal students in ninth through twelfth grade,” Moses said. “Also worthy of note is that seniors Natalie Holley and Muna Uzodike won solo auditions and performed with the choir. Additionally, Emily Spaulding was recognized as a four-year All-State member.” The guest choir conductor for this year’s concert was Jerry McCoy, Director of Choral Studies and Regents Professor of Music at The University of North Texas.

Selected to the 2014 TPSMEA All-State Choir from Cooper were: Natalie Holley, Madeleine Londa, Natalie Mattner, Emily Moses, Federico Portela, Vaishall Pradeepkumar, Sal Recio, Payton Russell, Emily Spaulding, Celeste Terni, Muna Uzodike, Kara Verma and Jack Whitney. Maddie Bergeron, Ellen McRobbie, Erin Nitcher and Connor Weinman were selected for the TPSMEA All-Region Choir.

Upper and Middle School Students Selected For TPSMEA All-State Band and ATSSB Honor Band

The Upper School band had nine students represented in the 2014 TPSMEA All-State Band, including Sanjana Ramesh Babu, Sanjena Venkatesh and Nathaniel Wu on flute; Alfredo Garcia on bassoon, Shannon Klein on bass clarinet; Abhishek Potdar on clarinet; William Liebbe on tuba; Shaan Davis on baritone saxophone and Douglas Ziman on tenor saxophone. Both Ziman and Davis were selected as first chair players and the guest clinician/conductor for the band portion of the TPSMEA concert was Dr. Kevin Sedatole, professor of conducting at Michigan State University.

Additionally, 34 Middle and Upper School band students qualified by audition for the Association of Texas Small School Bands (ATSSB) Honor Band. The ATSSB Region Clinic and Concert was hosted at Cooper and the concert performed on the Glenn Family Main Stage on January 17.

Eighteen Upper School band students qualified following region auditions for the ATSSB area auditions held at Chapel Hill High School on January 10. Of those, first chair clarinet player, sophomore Abhishek Potdar, achieved the highest honor among his public and private school peers by being selected to attend the TMEA/ATSSB Clinic/Convention in San Antonio, to be held February 11-14. Potdar will attend workshops and perform in the ATSSB/TMEA All-State Concert Band at 9:30 a.m. on February 14 in Lila Cockrell Theater.