Seven students from the Vandegrift choir program have earned the prestigious honor of being named a Texas All-State Musician. Raine Collier, Maura Connors, Varsha Kumar, Matthew Pegany, Neha Poreddy, Avani Rayasa, and Akash Shah are part of the 2022 Texas All-State Choirs. 

The Vipers are under the direction of Michael Zook and Emily Chandler, who are members of the Texas Music Educators Association, a 19,000+ member organization headquartered in Austin. 

“Despite the innumerable challenges encountered throughout this school year, 2022 All-Staters remained committed to their personal musical development,” according to officials.  

Over 50,000 students from around the state initially entered the audition process, and 1,860 students have been selected for 2022.   

Individual musicians perform selected music for a panel of judges who rank each instrument or voice part. From this ranking, a select group of musicians advances from one of 33 TMEA Regions to compete against musicians from other areas in eight TMEA Area competitions. The highest-ranking musicians judged at the TMEA Area competitions qualify to a TMEA All-State music group. 

The state convention was in San Antonio at the Henry B Gonzalez Convention Center in February.