Luis Aguirre, a senior French horn player at Nacogdoches High School, will perform with the Class 5A All-State Band Feb. 10 in San Antonio at the Henry B. González Convention Center as part of the 2024 Texas Music Educators Association Clinic/Convention.
Luis was one of 11 NHS band members to earn an All-Area designation earlier this school year. Luis has taken private horn lessons from retired Professor of Horn at Stephen F. Austin State University Dr. Charles Gavin and former NISD brass instructor Miaoqian Liu. He plans to audition for the horn studio at SFA this spring and continue learning under Dr. Andrea Denis, Assistant Professor of Horn.
At NHS Luis is under the direction of Jacob Weems, who is a member of the Texas Music Educators Association, a 14,000-plus member organization headquartered in Austin. This is Luis’s first time to perform as a member of a TMEA All-State organization.
“Luis is an outstanding member of the Dragon band and a talented musician,” Weems said. “He is indicative of the great students we have in our program here at the high school and at McMichael Middle School.”
High school students selected to perform in the All-State concerts have competed through auditions to qualify at the state level. All-State is the highest honor a Texas music student can receive. 1,875 students are selected through a process that began with over 70,000 students from around the state vying for this honor to perform in one of 18 ensembles. Only the top 2.6 percent of musicians who initially audition become All-State musicians.