PCHS Bulletin - Jayden Martinez
Published Date - October 16. 2025
The music programs at Parrish Community High School (PCHS) are turning up for success, with the PCHS orchestra program celebrating a major achievement: seven students were selected for the prestigious All-County Orchestra.
The honor represents the culmination of a rigorous audition process and highlights the dedication of PCHS's young musicians. Seven students from the school's orchestra made the highly selective ensemble.
The students selected are Ava Le, Vimianchan Thach, Thien Nguyen, Lena Zielinska, Sergio Lloyd-Toro, Ryan Schaefer, and Daniel Bonilla. They capped off their preparation with a final performance on Saturday, October 4, at the Neel Performing Arts Center at the State College of Florida in Bradenton.
The All-County Orchestra brings together the top orchestra students from Manatee County's public and private schools.
"Orchestra students from around Manatee County schools... auditioned on Saturday, August 30th all day at Mona Jain MS," explained Tyler Habig, a PCHS orchestra teacher. The process is a "blind audition for both the judges and the performers," ensuring the selection is purely merit-based on musical scores.
The selected students participate in several rehearsals and a final weekend of work with guest clinicians before the final performance.
While celebrating the All-County success, the music programs also clarified the difference between this event and the even more competitive All-State ensembles.
"All-County is an event that each of our three music programs, choir, band, & orchestra, put on during the year," Habig said. "All-State is like All-County, but the entire state sends the best students to audition for only 1 high school ensemble."
Auditions for the district's All-State ensembles were recently held, and if selected, students will spend a week in January performing at the FMEA conference in Tampa.
Regardless of the next level of competition, the success of the seven All-County orchestra members marks a high note for the Parrish Community High School music programs. Congratulations to Mr. Habig and his students.