Lawrence High senior Gavin Jones has been selected to perform with the All National Honor Choir in Orlando in November. Jones is pictured on Wednesday, July 19, 2017 at the Lawrence Arts Center.

Gavin Jones may just be the first kid from Lawrence to make it into the All-National Honor Choir two years in a row. That’s according to Mike Jones, the 17-year-old baritone’s dad and longtime band director at Lawrence High School.

In his 16 years at the school, he’s never seen any of his band students advance to the National Association for Music Education’s countrywide ensembles. A two-year member in the national choir — “that’s going to be a rare person,” Jones said.

Still, even after earning a spot in last year’s All-National Honor Choir and performing at the NAfME convention in Grapevine, Texas, the younger Jones said he was surprised to hear he’d made the team again this year. The soon-to-be senior is among 200-plus high school students invited to perform with the national choir November at Walt Disney World.

“I didn’t know if I would get in or not,” said Jones, who theorized that the 2017 venue might have spurred more kids to audition. “This year the location is going to be Disney World in Orlando, so I was like, ‘Whoa, I don’t know if I’m going to make this.'”

That, of course, wasn’t the case, as the teenager learned last week. The news that he’d clinched a second consecutive invitation to the choir, Jones said, came about two months after he sent off his video audition to the NAfME. Jones said he spent about three weeks practicing his assigned piece for the audition, which came after successfully auditioning first for the Kansas Music Educators Association’s northeast district choir and All-State choir.

Lawrence High senior Gavin Jones has been selected to perform with the All National Honor Choir in Orlando in November. Jones is pictured on Wednesday, July 19, 2017 at the Lawrence Arts Center.

Jones’ mother, LHS orchestra director Rachel Dirks, accompanied him to last year’s convention. This time around, chaperone duties will fall to Mike Jones. The couple have never pushed their kids toward music — “but I don’t know how you grow up in a household with two music teachers and have it not be at least somewhat of a factor,” the elder Jones said half-jokingly. Luckily, his son seems to genuinely enjoy singing and performing, he said.

“He does amazing things, and he’s very, very talented, and it’s fun to watch him do his thing and be successful,” Jones said. “As a music teacher and as a dad, it’s pretty awesome to watch him and see him succeed like that.”

And Gavin Jones, who also plays cello in his mom’s orchestra at Lawrence High in addition to singing in the school’s choir, said he’s grateful for his parents’ support — and their occasional nudges, too.

“Usually when it comes to anything to do with music, they don’t like to pressure me too much,” Jones said of his mom and dad. “But every once in a while if I wasn’t practicing or whatever, they were like, ‘Hey Gavin, maybe you should practice that national choir stuff at some point.'”

Joking aside, Jones knows he might very well end up following in his parents’ footsteps. He hopes to eventually major in vocal performance, but he’s also considering music education or music therapy.

In the meantime, he’ll spend the fall preparing for the All-National Honor Choir performance in November. Jones said he’s looking forward to meeting his conductor and maybe some new friends. The opportunity to collaborate and socialize with other young musicians, he said, was a highlight of last year’s convention.

“It’s what I love to do the most with my time and with my life,” Jones said of music. “I have a really deep passion to sing, and it really makes me happy.”