Chapel Hill junior Timothy Rinehart recently won a place on the All-National Honors Ensemble (ANHE), which was held at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida, from November 25–28.
ANHE is made up of high-school students from across the United States. In 2018, there were five different sections: a jazz ensemble, mixed choir, guitar ensemble, concert band and symphonic orchestra. Rinehart, who plays double bass, was part of the symphonic orchestra alongside over 120 other students.
Rinehart is the only student from Chapel Hill High School to be invited to ANHE in the past six years. He was also a part of the three-day All-State Orchestra, held at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem from November 9–11.
“We traveled with Carrboro and East Chapel Hill,” Rinehart said. “I’ve made a few friends from those schools, and I met a ton of cool people at the All-State Orchestra.”
Only seven students from North Carolina, who applied by sending in recordings of themselves performing, were selected for ANHE this year. While at the conference, orchestra students rehearsed pieces, performed in front of an audience and visited Disney World.
Rinehart traveled with his father and younger brother for the trip. Rinehart said he initially picked up bass in sixth grade in order to play jazz with his father and has played ever since. He mainly plays orchestral music, but he still takes time each week to play jazz.
“Weekends I mostly spend going to rehearsal,” Rinehart said, “It’s around ten hours a weekend. At home, I try to practice at least an hour a day, but a lot of the time I just have too much homework.”
Rinehart is a part of a youth symphonic group and two jazz groups. He also takes private lessons from Leonid Finkelshteyn, the principal bassist of the North Carolina Symphony. Recently, Rinehart has started to talk with Finkelshteyn about pursuing music in college and as a career.
“I really like double bass,” Rinehart said. “I might pursue a career in music; that’s one of my options. I’ve been thinking of majoring in music and maybe another major in addition to that.”
