On Thursday, January 14, seniors Rachel Menchaca and Victoria Furlan earned the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) All-State honors. The distinction, which came after they began the rigorous audition process in the fall semester, earned them an invitation to the TMEA Conference in San Antonio, the largest music conference in the world.

“I’m pretty excited for the conference,” senior Rachel Menchaca said. “It should be a really great experience.”

Menchaca and Furlan are two of only thirty-six students in CFISD who earned the honor. Although the students all get the same honor of All-State, there are different categories that go into it, such as the Women’s Choir, Men’s Choir, and a Mixed Choir. They just get different music and play different kinds of concerts and competitions.

“They are very different, but they are both really fun,” Menchaca said.

However, it’s typically the All-State Mixed Choir that is, well, mixed with all three of the instrumental categories, with Choir, Band, and Orchestra. Both Menchaca and Furlan were in Choir. Menchaca was previously in the Women’s Choir and is now in the Mixed Choir.

“It’s still not the same, it’s different every time,” she said.

All-State Choir isn’t easy to get through and if it were easy, there wouldn’t be an audition process—especially one so long and tedious. The process itself almost took up the entire fall semester, and then the students had to await the release of the list of students who made the Choir.

“Trying to balance time management with everything on top of the auditions actually wasn’t as bas as I thought it would be,” Menchaca said.

Though it’s difficult, this is the students’ passion, and going after this honor was definitely worth every step of the way—especially when they get to do what they love most.