On December 6th, an announcement was made that the All-State Auditions were to be canceled on the the 7th due to inclement weather conditions in certain parts of the state. A few days later, it was decided that the auditions would be rescheduled on the 21st. Strangely enough, the auditions were canceled again and students were to record their auditions on the 21st instead, under the supervision of their instructor. Rescheduling an All-State audition had happened only once in the history of all All-State auditions in Missouri.

Orchestra instructor, Julie Hoffman, believes that although it was a convenience for her, it was an inconvenience for the staff and the judges participating in the auditions.

“When so much planning and preparation goes into setting everything in place only to have to cancel and reschedule which was also cancelled. That created even more problems because the University was not in session and the students auditioning were already starting vacation, not to mention judges and volunteers,” Hoffman said. “MOASTA people had to put in hours looking at weather, finding new judges, volunteers, and contacting the different All-State groups to make sure everyone was doing the same thing. To me, I spent extra time preparing for what I would need to do if it was cancelled. Time wise, I would have been at the auditions with my students so it probably went faster for me and for my students since we didn’t have to wait around nor did we have to drive to Columbia.”

Hoffman also believed that although, time-wise, recording was a convenience for her students, it did not benefit the students. “For the audition itself,” Hoffman said, “Live is a much better experience and the best teaching experience for students.”

Since the auditions were not live, there is a possibility of schools taking advantage of the situation and allowing their students record multiple times in order to increase their chances of getting in. “I hope that integrity will rule. We did it right and that is all that matters. I will say that in the past MOASTA used to have recorded auditions and we would record multiple times and take the best one. The downside is that your first or second try was always the best so much time was wasted.”

Out of the 17 members in orchestra and the 15 members in band who auditioned, eight orchestra members and nine band members made it; Hava Polinsky, Leah Peipert, Cherry Tomatsu, Doren Lan, Adam Garrett, Nuri Yi, and Phoebe Yao for orchestra and Maddy Goedegebuure, Leah Peipert, Risa Umemori, Kentaro Umemori, Shiori Tomatsu, Momoko Oyama, Jeffrey Yung, Ethan Leong, and Jeremy Glik for band.