Free State High School violist Helena All has recently learned that she has been selected for the All-National Honor Orchestra. All, who will be a junior at FSHS, will travel to Orlando, Florida to perform with the orchestra at Disney World in November.

Helena All’s perfectionist tendencies have paid off.

In the fall, she’ll head off to Walt Disney World, the site of this year’s All-National Honor Orchestra concert. All, a soon-to-be junior at Free State High School, is among a handful of students nationwide to earn a spot on the National Association for Music Education’s top string ensemble for high school musicians.

“I was really confused and surprised,” All, a violist in her school’s symphonic orchestra, said of hearing the news last week. “I didn’t think I was going to make it in, but I was super, super excited.”

Free State High School violist Helena All has recently learned that she has been selected for the All-National Honor Orchestra. All, who will be a junior at FSHS, will travel to Orlando, Florida to perform with the orchestra at Disney World in November.

The 16-year-old is among 152 students chosen for this year’s All-National Honor Orchestra, a position she earned after successfully auditioning first for the Kansas Music Educators Association’s northeast district orchestra and All-State orchestra.

All said she practiced every day for about a month in preparation for the NAfME’s video audition, which she sent off a couple months ago. Learning via email earlier this month that she’d been selected for the prestigious All-National ensemble, she said, was a complete surprise.

The honor was a first for Judy Eperlding, too. In her five years teaching orchestra at Free State, she’s never had a student make it into the All-National Honor Orchestra. It’s a “true testament” to All’s work ethic, Eperlding said, as well as her modesty. All’s not the kind to brag about her accomplishments, Eperlding said.

“It’s a big deal because for All-State, it makes her one of the best in the state of Kansas on her instrument. But here we are on the national level,” Eperlding said. “She’s going to get to perform with the very best musicians in the nation for orchestra students, and with the very best conductor in the nation.”

All, who said she’s constantly comparing herself to others, makes a habit of practicing her viola every day, even during the summer. She’s loved the instrument since the sixth grade, and for her, it never gets old.

“There’s always something new that I learn every time I pick it up, whether it be something about tuning or different ways to do vibrato, but just being able to expand my knowledge on the instrument, too,” All said.

She’s not sure what the future might hold for her musically — pursuing the viola as a career, All said, remains on the table, but she hasn’t decided on a college major yet. Regardless, she said she’d like to continue playing after high school.

For now, she’s just focusing on November’s concert in Orlando. First, there’s plenty of paperwork to fill out. Then, in September, she’ll receive her sheet music for the big performance, and the real work will begin. Much of the trip, which she’ll tentatively attend with her teacher as a chaperone, will be spent in rehearsal, though All expects “they’ll give us a little free time to go run around” Disney World during the four-day trip.

She’s looking forward to that, and a few other things, too.

“I’m really excited to be able to play with other students from across the nation who are just as passionate about music as I am, and hopefully just have fun playing the instrument,” All said. “I am really proud of myself for making it that far, and now I just know that the hard work that I’ve put into playing the viola has paid off.”