Junior Addison Blanks is a member of the Mighty Panther Band and plays the clarinet, ever since she joined the band program in the fifth grade Blanks has practiced everyday and has also taken private lessons trying to get better at playing the clarinet. The outcome of her hard work now pays off as she performed at Carnegie Hall in New York for thousands of people.
Through College Board’s search services, George Mason University was able to hear about Blanks and sent her an email inviting her to apply for the 2024 Honors Performance Series ensemble. The Honors Performance Series is an organization that assembles young rising musicians around the world and invites them to perform in well known concert halls in front of thousands of people with the chance to get scouted by colleges and earn scholarships.
“It sounded like a really good thing to put on a college application if I made it,” Blanks said, “and it sounds like a way to help improve myself.”
To audition, Blanks had to prepare two music pieces. One of the pieces required was the ‘Albarado’ by Rimsky Korsakov and the other is a piece of her choice. Blanks chose to play ‘Rose Study NO. 35’ by Cyrille Rose. “I chose to play Rose Study,” Blanks said. “because I thought it was a great music piece that could display my technique and tone to the judges.”
For two months Blanks was nervous preparing for her final audition submission. She would practice her music pieces for the audition everyday she could, she would go back and listen to her recording to see where she could make improvements. Though she would practice everyday she felt it wasn’t her best work.
“I was very nervous because, even though I could record multiple times, it was sending the best recording I had. It was still nerve racking because I’ll always have that one part in it that I would mess up and I record and record again and then at one point, I just had to finally accept it.”
After two months of her hard work and improvement Blanks was ready to submit her recording and finalize her audition. No longer having to worry about her audition she felt relieved.
“I felt like it was the best recording I could have gotten out of myself, but I didn’t know if it was going to be good enough to make the band because they chose from a pool of applicants across the world.” Blanks said.
Soon after feeling relieved, she would start worrying about the results that would be sent out. There was no official date that results would be sent out, Blanks says she would constantly check her emails, hoping there would be an email. So when she checked her phone in the middle of one of the school’s pep rallies in October, she didn’t expect to find out she had made the selection.
“I was so happy, It was so much stress. Me and my mom would check our emails everyday looking for a notification and when it finally came in it was just like a sense of relief.” Blanks said. “I started crying in the middle of the pep rally “
Blanks to perform in New York at the Carnegie Hall on February 10th. Carnegie Hall is an open opportunity for Blanks, given the chance to perform in front of thousands of people. Within the audience there will be college scouts. Blanks looks forward to the possibility of getting scouted and getting scholarships.
“At the performance there’s going to be about 500 College scouts that will be looking to give out scholarships and that could benefit my future to become a band director,” Blanks said.
Performing at Carnegie Hall was such an impacting event for her. It’s not everyday Blanks get to perform for thousands of people with the chance of getting scouted. At Carnegie Hall, the music pieces the Honor Performance Series played were ‘Shepherd’s Hey’ by Percy A. Grainger, ‘American Hymnsong Suite’ by Dwayne S. Milburn, ‘Vulnerable Joy’ by Jodie Blackshaw, and ‘A Deep Reverberation Fills with Star’s’ by John Mackey.
“When I walked on stage and saw the amount of people and how amazing the stage was, I was overwhelmed with joy, and in the late moment it hit me that I had made it to one of the most well known concert halls in the world,” Blanks said. “When we began playing, I had to hold back tears of joy as I made eye contact with my mom while I was playing as I could see her say she was proud of me. At the conclusion of the performance, during the applause, I just started crying realizing what I had just done.”
