Over 120 Port Washington School District students were selected to perform in the 2025 Nassau Music Educators Association (NMEA) All County Music Festival—held at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts on multiple days this January. The festival brings music students together from schools throughout Nassau County.
To qualify for selection, most students perform at the New York State School Music Association (NYSSMA) Adjudication Festival and the students must be nominated by their music teachers. Several committees of Nassau Music Educators Association (NMEA) music educators select the students for the ensembles. Kevin Scully, Director of Creative Arts for the Port Washington School District, noted that this is once again the largest number of students ever selected from the district, surpassing 2024’s selection by ten students. He attributes that to the hardworking music faculty. “Our district music teachers spend countless hours preparing students for the all-county music festivals. From NYSSMA preparation to extra help sessions, to the actual process of nominating the students, their efforts are second to none,” said Scully.
The Port Washington students performed in five different divisions—broken down by grade level—in the categories of Band, Chorus, Orchestra, Vocal Jazz, and Jazz Band.
Congratulations to the following students*:
Guggenheim Elementary School:
Sydney Chang, Hailey Georgatos, Gloria Kahi, Nicolas De Oliveira Daskalis, Bernadette Sussman, Joelle Weaderhorn, and Emily Sweet.
Daly Elementary School:
Ayla Chin, Daisy Claster, Madeline Bughman, Skyler Irizarry, Morgan Wong, Elias Xidias, Myles Sohan, and Evie L'Esperance.
Manorhaven Elementary School:
Alya Alkan, Leyah Jo, Emily Cooper, Amelia Yoon, Rubin Kim, Tobias Juricka, and Alara Ozluturk.
Salem Elementary School:
Ela Cakir, Shayla Chablaney, Minnie Cavuoti, Caroline Chu, Sofia Hernandez, Kylie Meier, Ryan Rosenberg, and Reed Singer.
Sousa Elementary School:
Blake Cacossa, Welles Furtado, Eloise Hwang, Austen Moralez, Samantha Ramirez Aleman, Preston Feld, Leo Tito, and Madison Zepeda.
Weber Middle School:
Ethan Ascher, Anna Borriello, Ava Burton, Natasha Caffrey, Anthony Carillo, Gina Choi, Marisyn Scully, Cameron Brook, Jake Bronstein, Juliette Claster, Corinne Cheah, Emma Cassens, Ryann Cooper, Jenna Soskin, Charlotte Brill, Benjamin Milgrim, Eden Stock, Savannah Detor, Ilektra Maniati, Violet Seo, Kaito Kumagai, Cailyn Jiang, Lena Kim, Erin Kim, Remy Pokrassa, Gabriela Leder, Logan Levy, Paul Moon, Nicholas Picciuto, Daniel Princian, Jack Rabin, Amanda Greber-Raines, Jonah Sefick, Adrian Size, Ezra Smolow, Samuel Paredes, Benjamin Zawadzki, Dillon Zwerlein, Ganesh Persaud and Evan Wang.
Schreiber High School:
Matisse Byrnes, Hannah Choi, Nathaniel Chou, Gavin Cheevers, Simone Gordon, Sophia Gebbie, Aisling Hassett, Leo Herman, Quinn Hu, Gabriel Jaffe, Victoria Kaufman, Julian Kimball, Jessica Li, Christian Li, Chaemin Lee, Vivian Leung, Sophie Liu, Maximo Lopez, Evan Matthew Mallari, Nyra Mehra, Grayson Meister, Cassidy Metzner, Elizabeth Milgrim, Aurora Mata, Sarato Toyoma, Sayuki Toyoma, Isabella Ertel, Marley Coren, Alexandra Lazear, Leah Dong, Connor Roditi, Charles Paredes, Myla Tannenbaum, Lila Hershman, Jonah Shapiro, Kako Murayama, Minseong Seo, Charlotte Walz, Sophia Sobel and Norman Yao.
*(Some students were unavailable for photos and are not pictured.)