Thomas Worthington and Worthington Kilbourne high schools' musicians achieved state honors by performing in the all-state band and orchestra at the Ohio Music Education Association Conference last month.

Thomas Worthington orchestra director Eric Doolittle said nine band and orchestra students were selected to perform at the Jan 27-29 conference in Cincinnati -- a record for the high school.

"It is the highest individual honor you can get in the state," Doolittle said. "They choose the top kids for these honors."

Nearly 1,000 students submit audition tapes each year to the concert.

Thomas students selected are Liam Bacon, David DePoy, Bryan Glover, Alesha Hahn, Sarah Huston, Kyle Lamb, Eric Magnuson, Claire Matlak and Julia Warton.

Doolittle said the students sent in audition tapes last summer.

"High school and college band and orchestra directors listen to the tapes and pick the top players in the state to rehearse and play with an all-state band and all-state orchestra at the conference," he said.

"Several of the players took first chair once they were there and got to perform some of the main solos."

The Thomas Worthington orchestra will perform for the public at 7 p.m. today, Feb. 23 at Thomas Worthington High School, 300 W. Dubin-Granville Road, then go on to compete at the OMEA orchestra state contest, to be held at 8:30 and 10:50 p.m. Friday, Feb. 25 at Reynoldsburg High School.

"It's a late contest, and they tend to save the better ones for the late performances," Doolittle said. "We don't have a state qualifying contest in orchestra, so everyone competes at the state level."

The state qualifying contest for the band and choir is the district OMEA band and choir contest, set March 11 and 12, which Thomas Worthington will host.

"We'll host 23 bands and 28 choirs, which will determine who goes on to compete at the state level in band and choir," Doolittle said.

Phil Day, associate director of bands at Worthington Kilbourne High School, said the school's entire wind symphony of 60 students also was selected to perform at the OMEA conference in Cincinnati.

"They were one of only three high school bands from a 10-state region chosen by audition to perform, so it was a huge honor for us," Day said.

Band director Don Nathan said the concert in Cincinnati featured 2007 Kilbourne graduate Jackie McCammon playing Diversion for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble by Bernhard Heiden.

He said the ensemble also performed the world premiere of Foundry, by composer John Mackey.

Day and Andy Scheurer, McCord Middle School band director, were guest conductors of the program, Nathan said.

After its performance, the wind symphony was the demonstration band for a clinic by composer and music educator James Swearingen of Capital University, Nathan said.

Kilbourne students selected to perform in the all-state ensembles at the Cincinnati conference include Katie Shaffer, Jenny Zavatsky and Emma Griffin, in all-state Choir; and Dan Hitchcock, in the all-state jazz Band.

Day said Kilbourne's symphonic band, which consists of about 75 students, will perform and compete in the March 11 OMEA contest hosted by Thomas Worthington.