Five Enumclaw Middle School eighth-grade band and orchestra students were recently named to the all-state band and orchestra.

Lexi Kirchner-Dixon, violin, and Lindsay Ross, viola, were chosen to perform with the all-state orchestra, while classmates Tyler Osborn, tuba, Nicholas Fernandez, trumpet, and Jesse Birney, euphonium, were all-state band picks.

They competed with eighth-grade music students from across Washington for top honors, which will send them to the fourth annual Washington Music Educators Association Junior All-State West Band and Orchestra performance March 14 at the Highline Performing Arts Center.

Prior to the concert, these musicians will rehearse together under the direction of music educators. They were selected through auditions.

According to EMS director Lynda Alley, many professional musicians credit their all-state experience in their decision to choose music as a career. Others, she noted, whose career paths took them in other directions, have great memories of participating in this motivating musical experience and claim that it was a life-changing experience.

Well-known Washingtonians who have participated in past years’ WMEA all-state groups include The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist David Horsey, 2008 National Teacher of the Year Andrea Peterson, former Spokane County Sheriff Mark Sterk and jazz saxophonist Kenny G.