by Dennis Dalman
Allison Preiss, a Sartell High School senior, was one of about 100 talented musicians selected from the Upper Midwest to perform recently as a member of the annual University of Minnesota High School Honor Band.
Preiss is a member of the Sartell High School Band.
The Honor Band Weekend took place Jan. 26-28. After rehearsals with U of M musical faculty and conductors, the band performed five musical selections written by Minnesota composers.
During rehearsal sessions, Preiss was chosen to play not just one but five instruments in various phases of the sessions. Besides piano, she played drums, timpani (kettle drums), chimes and marimba.
Her parents, Milissa and Richard, and other well-wishers attended the Jan. 28 public concert at the Ted Mann Concert Hall on campus. Also present was Ruth Immermann, Preiss’s piano teacher for 12 years. Immermann teaches at Prince of Peace Lutheran School in St. Cloud, which Preiss attended through fourth grade before moving on to middle school, then Sartell High School.
“It was very surreal,” Preiss said of her chance to play in Honor Band. “I kept thinking, no way is this really happening. I have always been dedicated to my commitments. Never will I drop what I am passionate about.”
Preiss has had and still has many of her passionate commitments. She sings in the choir at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, she is a solid A-plus high-school student; she ran cross country for a few years; and she completed Army boot-camp last summer at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.
Next fall, she will attend the University of Minnesota where she will study architecture and be a member of the campus’s U.S. Army’s Reserve Officers Training Corps.
The culmination of the Honor Band Weekend was Jan. 28 when Preiss and all the other Honor Band performed a concert Jan. 28 at the Ted Mann Concert Hall on the university campus.
Preiss decided to apply for membership in the U of M Honor Band Nov. 1 when Sartell High School Band Director David Lumley recommended she audition. She then submitted a tape of her playing piano, xylophone and timpani drums along with a letter of recommendation from Lumley.
On Nov. 20, she received a congratulatory email letter that she had been accepted into the Honor Band.
The Jan. 28 concert was “amazing and very impressive,” Allison’s justly proud mother, Milissa, told the Newsleaders during an interview.
The cheering, applauding audience obviously agreed that it had been, in fact, an amazing performance.
Allison Preiss of Sartell plays piano during a rehearsal of the University of Minnesota High School Honor Band. She was one of about 100 students from the Upper Midwest chosen to be in the honor band, which gave a public performance Jan. 28 on the U of M campus.
