Highland High School senior Lorelai Howenstine is pictured holding a trombone.
Courtesy | Amy Arnett-Tomasek
The Highland Local School District is proud to announce that Lorelai Howenstine, a senior at Highland High School, has been accepted into the 2024 OMEA All-State Band. Howenstine is only the second student from Highland ever to be accepted into this prestigious group! Four trombonists were accepted, with only one being a girl.
The Ohio Music Education Association (OMEA) holds auditions for its top honor band every spring with a performance the next February at the OMEA Professional Development Convention. The audition materials are released in March, the recordings are due in May, and the student gets notified at the end of August.
The audition process is grueling and requires the student to submit several audio recordings of three advanced musical excerpts and an advanced solo. These recordings must be in one take and be virtually perfect to make the cut.
Out of approximately 1,200 applicants around the state, only a handful were chosen to represent the absolute best high school musicians in the entire state of Ohio. That is approximately an 8% acceptance rate. Just to put that number into perspective, our beloved TBDBITL is very hard to get into, and they have a 57%-68% acceptance rate depending on the number of applicants.
Howenstine is a senior trombone player and one of the drum majors for the Highland Marching Band. She has attended honor bands at Mount Vernon Nazarene University (2022, 2023), Capital University (2023), Ohio Northern University (2023), and Ohio Weslyan University (2023, 2024). In addition to playing in large ensembles, she has earned four superior medals at OMEA Solo & Ensemble contest playing trombone and euphonium solos (2022, 2023, 2024), as well as winning the Dublin Youth Solo Competition this past March. She has only participated in one ensemble outside of Highland, being the Dublin Youth Brass Band in this past spring of 2024. Howenstine with her co drum major, Robinetta Hopkins, attended the Phantom Regiment Drum Major Camp in June 2024.
Howenstine has been a member of the Highland Marching Band for five years, Concert Band since sixth grade, and Pep Band for five years. Howenstine was also an integral part of the Highland Marching Band’s success for the past three years at the OMEA State Marching Band Finals. After graduation, she intends to attend a music conservatory and to major in music composition next fall.
Outside of music, Lorelai is in the National Honors Society, she is a new member of the Highland Student Council as well as the Youth and Government program. During the winter, she is heavily involved with the Highland Theater program as their outgoing stage manager. When she has time to herself, she will take the chance to go on a trail run, take a thrifting trip, embroider/sew clothes, or experiment with different crafts.
Howenstine’s quote for the journey she has ventured upon: “Setbacks can’t harm you unless you let them.”
Submitted by Highland Band Director Amy Arnett-Tomasek.
