The best of San Diego Unified School District’s middle and high school instrumentalists are coming together later this month for a special performance in downtown San Diego. Of the 300 total students named to the bands and orchestras, nearly a dozen of them hail from La Jolla’s public schools.
Each year, SDUSD students are selected to District Honor Music Ensembles consisting of students across four groups: Middle School Honor Orchestra (73 students), Middle School Honor Band (71 students), High School Honor Orchestra (86 students) and High School Honor Band (70 students).
This year, they’ll perform at the Jacobs Music Center on Sunday, March 22 across two separate performances. The middle school honor concert begins at 11:30 a.m., while the high school honor concert is set to follow at 4 p.m.
The following students at Muirlands Middle and La Jolla High School were named to the ensemble:
Muirlands Middle School
• Alexis Pfandt, seventh grade (violin)• Sophia Jones, seventh grade (trumpet)• Luca Giaconi, seventh grade (percussion)• Maya Ashrafi, eighth grade (clarinet)• Raina Patel, eighth grade (clarinet)• Taylor Alvarado, eighth grade (tenor sax)
La Jolla High School
• Anton Davydov, ninth grade (cello)• Rex Mueller, tenth grade (cello)• Yongyan Yu, tenth grade (violin)• Josephine Hsueh, twelfth grade (violin)• Yuka Miyamoto-Wollberg, twelfth grade (violin)
Students enrolled into their school programs had to earn their spots through a competitive audition process.
Laura Williams, a performing arts research teacher for the District’s Visual and Performing Arts Department oversees the process from auditions to performances. She explained to La Jolla Light that judges seek out students with top tier technical and expressive skills.
High school students submitted recorded auditions, while middle schoolers performed live in front of judges at Wilson Middle School in City Heights on Jan. 27.
“We have judges in a variety of rooms, so [someone] might be the flute judge and [is] going to listen to 30 flutes come in, five or 10 minutes per student, and play the same excerpt and same scale,” Williams explained.
In the end, scores were tallied and the highest ranked students were named to the ensemble.
Ensemble member Raina reflected on the audition experience and her selection, which she said came as a pleasant surprise.
“It was a little scary, but it was a lot of fun and it was a really good learning experience,” she said. “And it also teaches you how to handle your nerves in an important situation.”
Despite some nervousness, Raina said she is ready for the March 22 concert.
“I’m really confident,” she said. “In my middle school band, we always give like three or four performances every year. So I already play in front of a big crowd anyways. But I think it’s [going to] be really interesting to play at the Jacobs Music Center. I’ve never played in that nice of a concert hall ever.”
Sophia, who has been playing the trumpet for one year, shared a similar message of confidence and preparedness. She attributes to “a lot” of practice sessions in the four weeks leading up to auditions.
“I feel really excited and prepared, and I feel like I know how to play the pieces that the honor band gave me,” Sophia said. “I’ve never played anywhere else, so this is pretty big.”
While many are first-time performers, Luca is a three-time ensemble member dating back to his days at Bird Rock Elementary, when he was a member of the District’s elementary school ensemble.
Also a member of local band Elemental Sparks, Luca first played drums in fourth grade. He said he is “super excited” for his third selection.
Elemental Sparks performs at the Children’s Pool in La Jolla last year. Luca Giaconi, playing bass for the band, was named to San Diego Unified School District’s middle school honors ensemble as a percussionist. (Jennifer Giaconi)
“I’m super excited to go into the Jacob’s Music Center because it’s so beautiful and I really like how they rebuilt it,” Luca said, referencing its $125 million renovation project that wrapped in 2024. “That’s where a bunch of professionals perform, so it’s nice to see the view from where they see it.”
In judging the competition and assembling the ensemble, Williams said a goal is to “level up” the students’ work. Before the performance, students participate in several preparatory rehearsals.
She explained, “I would say our goal for each of these groups is students have the chance to collaborate across the district so they’re working with students who they have potentially never met from other schools [and] that they are working on more challenging repertoire than maybe they have the chance to get to in their own middle school or high school group.”