By Anwita Puttam – Staff Reporter

Senior Sarah Gutierrez and junior Lexi Velez were both recently accepted into the CMEA All-State Honors Festival.

The Honors Festival is a large Choir social event where students audition to get into Regionals, but only a select few get accepted into States. Those lucky students get to participate in the CMEA States Choir.

“I am beyond thrilled that two of our amazing Law choir students got into the CMEA All State Honors Festival, particularly this year – it was highly competitive because they took fewer students,” Choir Director Ms. Jones said. “To know out of thousands of students in the state our students were chosen is quite an honor and accomplishment.”

This year is Gutierrez’s last year in the Jonathan Law Choir and was her final chance to get accepted into CMEA. Gutierrez had the highest score out of all the CMEA participants from the Law Choir this year.

“Experience with CMEA is definitely interesting and keeps you occupied, you get to meet fun people and collaborate with musicians across the Southern Region of Connecticut and you meet wonderful directors who are very nice and talented,” Gutierrez said. “For CMEA last and this year I got a 192/198 and for All-State I got a 193/198. I am definitely proud of these scores since I think that these types of scores are very challenging to achieve and it takes a lot to be able to be ranked this high so I’m very happy.”

Velez posted a score of 180/198 at her audition which qualified her for the festival. She was an All-State participant last year as well.

“I am very excited for States because it is an experience that I would never want to miss,” Velez said. “I love and enjoy singing, so for me this is a huge accomplishment. I’m so excited to be able to see everyone and to be able to do this experience again for my second time.”