Ella Dinehart

Ella Dinehart (9) poses with her flute. She is the only freshman in Wind Symphony. “…I feel like I have really high expectations to look up to since I’m the only freshman. I just feel like he (Brakefield) expects a lot from me,” Dinehart said.

On Oct. 31, 2023, Ella Dinehart (9) auditioned for her chair placement in what she thought would be Symphonic Band. Little did she know, Dinehart would end up in Wind Symphony.

“…I feel like I have really high expectations to look up to since I’m the only freshman. I just feel like he (Brakefield) expects a lot from me,” Dinehart said.

The news was shocking to Dinehart and her family, as they had not expected her to join Wind Symphony.

“Me and my parents were like, ‘Oh my gosh, I did not think that was gonna happen,’ and I was especially surprised,” Dinehart said.

Before concert band had started, Dinehart was in marching band. The transition between the two was very sudden for her.

“It was very quick,” Dinehart said. “We went from going outside every class, me knowing exactly what I was playing, what I was doing, where I was going, to me sitting down in the choir room having no idea what I was doing there, playing music that was the hardest music I have ever seen in my life.”

Usually after marching band ends, freshmen go into Symphonic Band, but there are some exceptions.

“I think Kelly Akers made it as a freshman. She’s a junior now,” OHS band director Vance Brakefield said, “so Kelly made it as a freshman. She might’ve been the last freshman until Ella now.”

While she is now a freshman, Dinehart has been playing the flute since sixth grade. In eighth grade, marching band auditions took place.

“Well we knew she (Dinehart) was talented as an eighth grader, but we don’t really hear the full range of skills in a single audition that students turn in in January of their eighth grade year,” Brakefield said, “…and then it was just her persistence and her spending daily practice, and so she made a lot of improvements in eight months.”

Although Brakefield believes Dinehart is doing well in class, she still doubts her abilities in flute playing.

“It (getting into Wind Symphony) is crazy to me because I feel like there are freshmen that are better than me and didn’t get in,” Dinehart said. “Also, [I am] very self-conscious because, again, the only freshman.”

Although she sometimes doesn’t believe she is ready for it, Brakefield thinks otherwise.

“She can produce a sound and she knows how to manipulate her embouchure to help her sound,” Brakefield said. “I can just help, you know, guide her in the right path.”