Being selected for the New York State School Music Association’s all-state choir involves years of practice, polished technique, and perfect performance scores. Each year, only about 220 students from across New York State schools are chosen to take part in the festival, which culminates in a performance at the historic Eastman Theater in Rochester.
To achieve it once is a capital-A Achievement. Nick Cooper did it twice.
“I’m extremely appreciative of the opportunity to work with other excellent students,” the East Hampton High School senior said in a recent interview. “I really connected with the sound that we made.”
As one of only a handful of students in Suffolk County to make the cut, Nick, who sings bass, said the experience helped him refine his skills and make new friends. He was thrilled to have a chance to work under the conductor, Gary Packwood, the choral director at Mississippi State University, who lost an arm in a 2001 car accident yet continued to teach and conduct.
“He was inspirational to me,” Nick said.
It was also an accomplishment at least nine years in the making, according to Melanie Freyre, a music teacher in her 18th year teaching in East Hampton. Having taught at nearly all grade levels, Ms. Freyre has had Nick as a student since he was in the fourth grade, so she has seen how far he has come.
“When Nick was in fourth grade, I was teaching the kids sight-reading, and he was composing his own [music] on the board and we would use that,” she recalled. “He was definitely always elevated.”
In a college recommendation letter for Nick, Ms. Freyre said she wrote that “he inspires students around him to love the music as much as he does,” not just because of what he is doing, but also “because of the way he is doing it. He definitely is a standout.”
Nick also plays the piano, acts and dances in school musical theater productions, and as a junior took up the bass drum to perform with the school band with only a couple of rehearsals under his belt.
“I think about music as a math or science,” Nick said. “It’s rigid and mathematical, but artistic at the same time. If you understand what the music means to you, you can express it to the audience.”
The all-state journey begins with annual solos and sight-reading evaluations by music teachers who have been trained as judges by the New York State School Music Association, or NYSSMA. There are six levels of difficulty and a parallel process for students studying orchestra and band instruments. With high enough scores, students are then chosen for select ensembles at the county level. Those with perfect scores are ranked in consideration for the all-state choir. Students learn in the spring that they’ve been chosen for the wintertime all-state festival in the following school year.
Making the all-state chorus twice “says that Nick is really very dedicated to his talents, to his musicianship,” said John Gallagher, a NYSSMA spokesman who is also the director of music and fine arts for the Longwood School District. “Nick obviously goes above and beyond.”
Nick said he plans to continue studying music as a minor in college next year, and wants to keep performing. Could there be a competitive collegiate a cappella group in his future? (Those are all the rage right now.)
The all-state choir experiences “were indescribable,” he said. “It can be nerve-racking, but it was really special to be singing with high-level musicians that have the same passion that I have.”