Every year, thousands of students all over New York State participate in the New York State School Music Association (NYSSMA) festival. This year, Lynbrook was one of many schools to host this festival, welcoming about 1,500 music students into its halls on May 12-13.
Over the course of two days, student members of the Tri-M Music Honor Society volunteered their time for this festival. They were assigned various roles, including hallway assistants who directed families around, room monitors who checked in auditioning students and assisted judges, runners who collected score sheets from the adjudicators, and office assistants who inputted scores into the NYSSMA database and prepared score sheets to be sent to their respective schools. Adrianna Schaefer, director of fine and performing arts for Lynbrook, remarked, “I felt the students really rose to the occasion and were on hand when needed. The sheer enormity of hosting such a festival is daunting on a good day. The festival truly couldn’t run without the assistance of Tri-M volunteers, many of whom were there both days for the entire time.”
May 12 marked the start of NYSSMA auditions. After preparing a given solo for a few months, those students go on to audition in front of an adjudicator. They receive grades based on accuracy, technique, interpretation, and tone. Besides the solo, musicians must also be expected to perform three randomly selected scales, along with a short sight-reading piece. To assist these musicians, Tri-M students assembled into their places, and students and parents from other schools filed into hallways with instruments in varying sizes. Sophomore volunteer Lyla Gaffoor remarked, “I had a great experience assisting at the festival. I loved seeing all of the young kids experience NYSSMA; it was nostalgic as I’ve participated in these festivals since I was in elementary school.” The evening included a pizza break for student volunteers, along with a catered dinner for adjudicators and teachers. After dinner, everyone reassembled and continued with their routines. Concluding at 9 PM, various individuals were feeling that day one had been a success.
The following morning, May 13, Tri-M students arrived at 8 AM to perform similar duties as the previous day. Gaffoor continued, “I worked Friday and Saturday monitoring string rooms, and at times, monitoring double rooms. This meant that I assisted adjudicators and students auditioning.” The second day of NYSSMA lasted from 8AM to 4PM. At the conclusion of the festival, Tri-M volunteers “reset” the building by cleaning up all the music stands, chairs, and posters on the walls.
After a few weeks, students receive their score sheets. Levels 1-4 are graded out of 28 points, where levels 5 and 6 are graded out of 100. Some scores fall under the “outstanding” category, while others may receive a “needs improvement”. If a student obtains a perfect score, he/she may be nominated to perform at Nassau Music Educators Association (NMEA)’s All-County Festival. There, students from all over Nassau County work to perform pieces for the All-County concert.
By the end of the festival, Tri-M members had assisted hundreds of students and families hoping to make NYSSMA a smoothly operated event. Tri-M Vice President Liam Mylan shared, “Tri-M ran NYSSMA really well this year. We had a [large] number of members from the club come to help, which was great. Both upper and lowerclassmen did exceptional work, as they were able to respond quickly to issues that arose.” Overall, this year’s festival was a major success for LHS’s music department. Not only did Tri-M high schoolers ensure everything went accordingly, but younger Lynbrook musicians scored exceptionally high. Schaefer added, “Our musicians and their accomplishments are second to none, and we are consistently proud and amazed by [this].”
