Whoever said peer pressure is always negative lied.

“[I] auditioned freshman year with Jim [Allen],” senior Jake Henneford said about Great Falls Youth Orchestra. The entire percussion section is comprised of students from CMR. Tom Schaefer, Tanner Glicko and Joey Walker join Henneford and Allen in keeping the beat for the group.

“We’ve been playing together for years,” Allen said. In the upcoming March 20 concert, the YO is playing a piece written by a composer the boys have had the chance to work with.

“It’s a piece by Dan Bukvich,” Allen said. Bukvich, the percussion professor at the University of Idaho, visits CMR annually to teach at the Jazz Workshop in Jan. and composes music specially designed to showcase the drummers.

“[There’s] a lot going on in the percussion section,” Allen said. “I play the cymbals, tambourine. I whistle.”

Whistling may not seem like a skill that would take somebody far, but the boys have had the opportunity to play at an arena professional players dream of playing at.

“[I got to play] in Washington, D.C. for All-National at the Kennedy Center,” Henneford said.

“I’ve made all the ‘All’s,” he said. Henneford has made All-State, All-Northwest and All-National.

Besides performing with the best of the best, he plans on taking music to the next step. Henneford recently auditioned for Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., for a $10,000 scholarship. He will find out in March if he received the scholarship.

“I want to have a career as a classical musician,” he said. “I want to major in percussion performance and music education, then get a master’s in conducting.”