Many students at John H.PitmanHigh School have a notable musical talent and are part of choir, orchestra, or band. Edwin Savelson, better known as Eddie, is currently a junior at Pitman and has been a member of the school’s band since freshman year.
Savelson began playing the clarinet in the 5th grade. In the 7th grade, he started the instrument he plays now, the French horn. He auditioned for the 2013 NAfME (National Association for Music Education) with the French horn and the All-National Honor Symphony Orchestra, which he compared to “an all-star team for baseball or whatever it is for football.”
On October 30 in Nashville, Tennessee, Savelson joined more than 670 amazing and skilled high school musicians from all around the United States to perform for an audience of thousands in the Presidential Ballroom of the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. These exceptional students were professionally conducted by the conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO).
To receive this national honor, Salveson first had to qualify for the county orchestra (Stanislaus county, in his case), then the regional (Northern California and Southern California), followed by state (which is self-explanatory), and lastly national.
Savelson explained that to join All-National Honor Symphony “you have to make a recording – they give you specific [music] to play and you record that – then you send the recording to wherever they tell you to send it. They sit down; listen to all the tapes, narrow it down to so many players and those players get to participate in this group that’s supposed to be the best out of the nation.”
When asked whether he was proud of the fact that he’s the only student from Pitman to be named a member of the All-National Honor Symphony, Eddie Savelson unsurely and jokingly answered, “Yeah, I guess.”