Junior flute player Rachel Cernosek performed at state at the Texas Music Education Association state band competition this past weekend of Feb. 14-15 in San Antonio. She was able to perform with 400 other band contestants and played with the ensemble groups. She has been preparing her pieces since July and all throughout marching season.

TMEA is a music process where students audition for Region, Area and then State. The judges take all the best instrumentalists in the state and put them together in “bands.” It’s known for putting together the best bands in the state and participants get to perform with the most musically talented people in the state. Cernosek was able to play with the “bands” and felt at home playing with them.

“I passed the Area round and went to perform with the best ensemble in the State,” Cernosek said. “It was really awesome. I really did enjoy it a lot, it was really cool to hear how talented people across the state are. Basically everyone is super good and is really talented and when you put us together in one ensemble, it sounds really amazing.”

This year, Cernosek was the only band member at Cedar Park to make it to TMEA State. The title and award now label Cernosek as an “All-Stater” and make her chances of being accepted into music school higher. The TMEA competition accepts only 3% of all the students that audition. Cernosek was surprised when hearing the news of her making it to State.

“I was really shocked, the last audition that I did before, it wasn’t my best audition,” Cernosek said. “But the competition was so fierce in the flute room that it was hard to tell who would get the top of the room, and who would get the bottom of the room, but I did really well on two of my pieces that I had to perform, so I was feeling really good about it. You really get to master the music which was cool, it’s like 3 a tudes long we get to play and it sounds like a long time and that it would be tedious, but in music you always find something new to work on.”

In addition to marching band and TMEA, Cernosek is also in National English Honor Society and National Honor Society, and also takes three AP classes.

“It’s really hard to fit homework in with all that,” Cernosek said. “So I’ll end up doing homework in DEN or whenever I get any kind of free time. I do my homework, then come home and work on anything I have to do for band, which ends up being 2-4 hours of practicing. I didn’t get a lot of free time during marching season or TMEA , but now that competition is over, I get a little more relaxation time.”

Cernosek is really proud of the band this year and can’t find her without her comrades. Even though her work load gets overloaded with band and school life, Cernosek always tries to find time for her social life.
“You would think that I don’t have much of a social life but my band friends are my family,” Cernosek said. “I see them every single day and we’ll hang out whenever we get the chance to. And all of our schedules are kind of the same, especially if we are in the same band here, and we’ll hang out on the weekends if we have time or after competitions because they’re my best friends.”