PORT BYRON - Brittany Steimle waited all summer to receive her letter.

Months after singing an Italian aria at the New York State School Music Association Solo Festival to audition for a coveted slot in NYSSMA All State Ensembles, the U.S. Postal Service obliged, delivering to the 17-year-old soprano from Throop a slip of paper containing the news she longed to hear.

“When I got it, it was the best thing in the whole world,” she said.

Steimle was selected to perform in the NYSSMA All State Mixed Chorus in Rochester, joining about 250 of the best student vocalists in the state for a four-day festival Dec. 4 through Dec. 7.

While being selected for All State is itself an honor for Steimle, several factors have made it that much more special for her.

Not only is Steimle, a senior at Dana L. West High School, the only person selected from the Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES component schools, but she is also the first person to represent the Port Byron Central School District at All State in more than two decades.

Moreover, as a soprano, the competition to even land a spot at All County is stiffer than some other musicians.

“I think a lot of people in our schools, like a lot of schools, are sports-oriented,” vocal teacher Karen Bartlett-Morse said. “I don't think people understand how much an achievement it is to get into this chorus, especially as a soprano, because there are a million of them.”

While Steimle learned of her

selection at the end of the summer, the process to even get to that point took well over a year and countless hours of practice, beginning with last spring's solo festival.

With instruction from Bartlett-Morse - who, in addition to giving Steimle private lessons, is a district music teacher - Steimle studied and eventually mastered the aria “Batti, Batti O Bel Masetto” from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera “Don Giovanni.” She then performed that as well as sight-read a composition she had never seen before in front of a judge at the solo festival.

“My initial thoughts were, 'I've been working my whole life for something like this, so I should just do my best,'” she said. “When I was singing I felt like I was alone in some grand old place, in an opera house, not singing because I had to, but because I love it.”

Steimle earned perfect marks, 100 percent, which clinched a spot in this weekend's All County festival at East Middle School in Auburn, and then later All State.

She said what she is most excited about is the experience she'll receive singing alongside so many musicians from across the state.

“These people have been working very hard to be in something like this,” she said. “When it all comes together, to have all these very hard-working people perform, it's wonderful. It's magical.”

Bartlett-Morse said the opportunities Steimle will receive at All State will be nothing like anything she has seen at Port Byron.

“All these voices together, you can't imitate that when you don't have it,” she said, noting the size of Port Byron's chorus.

Quoting high school Principal Shawn Bissetta, Bartlett-Morse said, “We may be a small school, but we still do big things.

“Brittany is the perfect example of that.”

Staff writer Alyssa Sunkin can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 239 or alyssa.sunkin@lee.net