As a fifth-grader, Barrie Sugarman started to play her sister’s flute.

Now a 16-year-old senior at Flathead High School, Sugarman has earned a seat in the Montana High School Association All-State Festival band for the fourth consecutive year.

That’s a feat accomplished once before at the school by 2003 Flathead graduate Megan Slater, according to Flathead High School Band Director Allen Slater.

While Sugarman’s flute has changed, her enthusiasm to play hasn’t.

Up to 121 students, 16 of them flutists, will be featured in the band. Slater said making All-State is not a competition, but a chance for top musicians to work and collaborate with their peers.

“It’s admirable how students make a commitment to rise to their highest abilities,” he said.

Because Sugarman’s family already owned a flute, previously played by her older sister, she decided this was the instrument she would play.

“My sister played flute. I guess I wanted to be like her. She was my role model in a lot of ways,” Sugarman said.

With private lessons from Beth Pirrie of Kalispell, Sugarman progressed quickly. She learned how to use her breath without becoming lightheaded and mastered finger movements. She was ahead of her peers by the time she joined the sixth-grade band.  

While she isn’t aware whether or not she plays in a particular style, she said judges at music competitions often pick up on her intonation.

“Adjudicators always ask me if I take lessons from Beth Pirrie,” Sugarman said, smiling.

Her performances also are noted for their incorporation of vibrato — a rapid pulsating effect in pitch to add expression to notes. Sugarman refers to vibrato as ornamentation. Raising her flute to her lips, Sugarman gave a short example in the Flathead band room Wednesday. Each note warbled under her breath, imparting a feeling of lightness.

“It’s like wiggling the sound waves. It’s a hard thing to explain. It makes the music sound more attractive,” Sugarman said.

To make it four years with the All-State band, Sugarman had to audition as an eighth-grader in the spring to play in the fall festival her freshman year.

She heard about All-State from Slater, who was at the academic night when she was registering for high school. With help from her middle-school band teacher, Sugarman made an audition video recording for the first time.

“I wasn’t really expecting to make it,” Sugarman recalled. “I found out the first few weeks of the new school year that I made it. I was excited.”

Each year young musicians from around the state send in audition tapes containing chromatic scales, tempo articulations and other exercises to illustrate musical ability to judges.

For a young student, auditioning against older musicians — some deemed the best in the state — was intimidating at first, Sugarman said, but she had the drive to challenge herself. Each year she auditioned and was chosen to return.

“I was really nervous this year. I didn’t want to not make it because I’m only getting better,” Sugarman said.

She makes an effort to set aside time for practicing although her full International Baccalaureate schedule can become hectic at times. In addition to band, Sugarman is a senior drum major for the marching band, is on the speech and debate team and plays tennis.

This year the 2012 Montana High School Association All-State Band, Chorus and Orchestra Festival starts Oct. 17 and ends with a gala concert for the pubic Oct. 19 in Great Falls. Sugarman said the band usually performs three to four pieces. One of her past favorites included “Strange Humors” composed by John Mackey.

“It was a saxophone feature piece, jazzy, just really cool,” Sugarman said.

After Sugarman graduates from high school, she has aspirations to continue playing flute in a symphonic and marching band. In college, she also hopes to minor in music.

“I don’t think I could do without it,” she said.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at [email protected].