As a string quartet begins to play, he steps up to the mic. With the wave of a conductor’s arm, his voice echoes throughout the ears of thousands. Slowly, hundreds of voices join in to create a harmonious song. For the second year in a row, junior Isaiah Barafwala has qualified for the Tenor-Bass All State choir.

In order to make it this far, Barafwala and over 70,000 other high school choir students across the state had to go through three auditions over the course of October through January. Ultimately, 1,810 were chosen to perform at the Texas Music Educators Association convention in San Antonio on Feb. 13-15 as a part of four different choirs; Large School Mixed Choir, Treble Choir, Tenor-Bass Choir and Small School Mixed Choir. Barafwala placed first chair out of 28 tenor 1’s in the Tenor-Bass ensemble.

“When I found out I made first chair I was extremely excited and shocked,” Barafwala said. “I felt like I was more grounded than last year where I had no idea what was going on. Now that I knew what I was going into, it wasn’t easier, but more relaxed.”

In order to help prepare, Barafwala attended the Texas State Choir Camp over the summer. This camp is hosted by Texas State University where hundreds of high school choir students show up to be taught the audition music for the all state process. Throughout the fall, he spent time going to after school rehearsals hosted in the choir room and partaking in voice lessons with former choir director Julie Rhodes, all from around 30-45 minutes.

“I think the biggest challenge is the imposter syndrome that I felt,” Barafwala said. “With all the talented people around me, having to go up against them was really scary.”

Barafwala has been singing his whole life, and first started showing off his voice in elementary school talent shows. Now, he serves as a member of the varsity mixed choir chorale, Intonenation show choir, varsity theatre and ZACH Theatre in Austin.

“I think my work ethic has grown a lot,” Barafwala said. “[The All-State process] taught me that I can work very hard to get to something I really want to achieve.”

Although Barafwala is passionate about choir, he finds that musical theatre is where his future is headed. Most recently, he played Prince Topher in the theatre program’s production of Cinderella, and has been nominated for Best Male Lead Performer in the Heller Awards for Young Artists. The award show will take place at the Long Center on April 16, where Barafwala will be performing in the select ensemble.

“It’s crazy, I don’t know what else to say,” Barafwala said. “I get to work with these really cool people, like all the other guys who got nominated. I want to do musical theater for the rest of my life. There’s nothing else I wanna do.”

His next performance will be as Mercutio in the theatre departments Romeo & Juliet One Act Play, April 8-9.

“I’ve worked so hard on this and being able to have this achievement is so fulfilling and rewarding,” Barafwala said. “My biggest motivation is just knowing even when it gets rough, I know it’s gonna be really fun in the end.”

*As seen in print