Pea Ridge Band student, junior Quentin Mathis, was selected to the ASBOA All-State Band on Feb. 4. He is the first band student to be selected to the All-State band since Caleb Duvall was selected to both the All-State Band and All-State Choir in the spring of 2006. Caleb is the son of Dorcas and Doug Duvall, both teachers at the Intermediate School.
Mathis traveled to Hot Springs for the All-State Convention Thursday, Feb. 16-18, where he attended rehearsals in the All-State Band in preparation for a concert given in the Bank of the Ozarks Arena on Saturday, Feb. 18, inside the Hot Springs Convention Center. In order to be selected to the band, Mathis had to audition two weeks earlier at Arkansas Tech University where students from every region in the state who had qualified to audition via their All-Region audition results a month earlier. Roughly 1,200 students from every school in the state auditioned for the band and only five string bass players were taken, with Mathis being one of the five.
This is the biggest individual honor a music student can earn and begins the process of many area university's recruiting these students and offering scholarships to be in their music programs. Mathis enjoyed speaking to representatives from many schools including the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; University of Arkansas, Monticello; University of Central Arkansas; Arkansas Tech; Henderson State; Lyon College; Arkansas State University, Jonesboro; and University of Arkansas at Fort Smith.
Many concerts are put on during the three-day event that the band students can attend, including honor band concerts from schools in the state that applied via recording and were selected by a committee to represent their school, chamber orchestra, jazz bands, intercollegiate bands and the other all state bands and choirs performed all throughout the conference.
This was a great experience for Mathis to attend and participate in and can possibly open doors to music scholarships to his college of choice. Pea Ridge band directors Kevin Hume and Matt McCool hope to continue this trend going forward in the band program.
"Quentin is just the beginning of more to come," Hume said. "Congratulations to Quentin Mathis on this amazing achievement!"
Community on 03/01/2017