Senior is one of 3 trumpeters selected for all state honors orchestra, only ABSS student
Williams High School senior Kalyn Faille won a prestigious musical honor as one of three trumpeters from across the state selected for the All State Honors Orchestra to in Winston-Salem earlier this month.
Faille, 18, said in a recent interview with The Alamance News she has been playing the trumpet for seven years. She was the only ABSS student selected for the 2024 All State Honors Orchestra.
While female trumpet players are fairly rare, Faille said her mother Kelly Faille, who also played trumpet in high school, inspired her to pick up the instrument. And her band director at Turrentine Middle School, Sally Fairman, helped to nurture her talent, Faille recalled in the interview.
To be eligible to audition for the All State Honors Orchestra, Faille said, “You had to either be in All Region Orchestra or be eligible for All State Band.”
The All State Honors Orchestra is part of the North Carolina Music Educators Association’s annual convention, held each November, and brings together the top high school musicians from across the state, according to the organization.
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For her solo audition, Faille performed the classical composition Prelude et Ballade by Guillame Balay before a panel of music teachers from other N.C. public school systems, she said. As a trumpet player, she said she leans toward classical music but doesn’t really have any favorite genres or musicians.
A self-described serious student with a 4.6 grade point average, Faille hopes to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after she graduates from Williams, and plans to major in history and trumpet performance before going on to law school. She has been nominated for a Morehead-Cain Scholarship, a prestigious merit-based award that covers the expenses for all four years of undergraduate school at Carolina.
Since her junior year of high school, Faille has also been dually-enrolled in the Early College program housed at Alamance Community College’s main campus in Graham, though she said her classes are taught online.
In September, Faille joined the third class (cohort) for the Elon Freedom Scholars program at Elon University. “We meet one Saturday a month, and at the end of the program, we go to Elon and take classes for two weeks during the summer,” she elaborated. “We do service projects. I’m working with [two] other people to have an art and music festival that spotlights cultural groups. We have six months to develop it.”
While specific details, such as a potential date and location, are still being worked out, Faille envisions that festival as bringing together visual artists and musicians to “spotlight local people and groups” and provide hands-on activities for kids.
In addition to her studies, Faille also plays the trumpet with the Elon Concert Band. “I’ve studied with a trumpet professor at Elon, Jonathan Poquette,” she noted. Poquette is the husband of ABSS former teacher of the year Kelly Poquette, who is now an assistant professor of music education at Greensboro College.
“He’s always been very supportive,” Faille said of Jonathan Poquette, who directs the concert band and serves as the director of bands at Elon University. “He pushes me to reach outside of my comfort zone musically.”
One of her first teachers at Williams High School, Advanced Placement (AP) history teacher Todd Christensen, motivated Faille to someday pursue a career in law.
“He focused a lot on systemic inequalities and inequities,” Faille explained. “I thought the best way for me to directly contribute to change would be through law. I would probably want to focus on state law and making sure it’s representative of what the Founding Fathers thought was appropriate.”
Though both parents are trained as ICU nurses, dad Brian Faille is a stay-at-home parent now, while mom Kelly currently works in information technology for Cone Health, the Williams high school senior told the newspaper.
“I had to do at least better than [my mom] did,” Faille said in describing her motivation to excel in school. “She was a first-rate student and a junior marshal [who assisted with graduation and other formal events]; she was at the top of her class at UNC [Greensboro].”
Faille is also the Bulldogs’ drum major for this marching season, which runs through this fall, and was scheduled to march in the Burlington Christmas Parade last weekend; in the parade, however, she marched as a trumpeter.
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She performed with the All State Honors Orchestra at Reynolds Auditorium the weekend of November 8-10.
Faille lives in Burlington with her parents and two sisters, ages 13 and 16, who she said are also trumpet players and Honors students.
