Senior Eleanor Love is a clarinet player in McIntosh Band, having played for over seven years. In August, she attended her first-ever rehearsal for the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony for high school students. However, the journey that led her to this point definitely had some hills and valleys.

It all started in her eighth grade year, where she met her first obstacles.

“In eighth grade, the year that COVID happened, I kind of lost the passion for [music],” Love said.

“Then when I got to high school, [band director] Mrs. [Barbara] Baker and the pieces we played really got me inspired to try harder.”

After she being introduced to material that “requires a certain level of musicianship,” Love became reinvigorated and motivated enough to keep practicing her craft.

“A piece that really kindled my love for playing would be, weirdly enough, the All-State etude for clarinet my freshman year. I liked that etude so much that I practiced really hard and got to second round,” Love said.

Sadly, this piece was unable to be retrieved as it was private information.

From there, Love only got more and more skilled, getting into All-State Band consistently and making it into several honor bands along the way.

“I was really set on getting into All-State and I made it. Then in junior year, I was really into it so I made All-State again and did a bunch of honor bands like JanFest,” Love said. “I also got into the Metropolitan Youth Symphony Orchestra, which was my first experience playing in a full orchestra.”

All that work has led her to today, where she is currently in the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony and loves it. While the music may be more rigorous than what she’s used to, Love is up to the challenge and ‘loves’ it.

“I really like the people [in the ensemble], they’re really dedicated, and you can tell they all worked super hard to achieve that level of trainability. They take their music really seriously. Also the conductor is really good. He’s really friendly, he teaches a lot, and he’s lively too.”