Christa Neal is already involved with UCA even though she’s only a junior at Greenbrier High School.
At 17-years-old, Neal is already a part of UCA’s band.
“My sister, Victoria is in the UCA band, and it’s a community band,” Neal said. “They needed extra clarinets, and Victoria volunteered me, so I joined.”
Neal comes from a musical family. Her sister plays the flute for UCA. Her mother played trumpet in high school, her father plays the bass at their church and played saxophone in highschool, and her brother played the saxophone for a while as well.
Neal herself has been playing clarinet since she was in the sixth grade. However, the clarinet wasn’t her first choice.
“To be honest, I wanted to play the saxophone, but clarinet is just a little easier,” she said.
In her five years of playing, Neal has quite a bit of experience under her belt.
“I’ve done solo, ensemble and All Region,” Neal said. “All Region is where all the clarinets, all the instruments in the region, compete against each other and are placed in bands if they do well enough.”
Neal isn’t a stranger to success with her music. In 2020, she placed in the All Region competition.
“There are two bands, and I played in the second band and tied for first chair,” Neal said.
This success hasn’t always come to Neal, though.
“When I was first in band, I was super nervous. It was to the point of when I had my first performance, I didn’t even play the whole first song because I just couldn’t,” Neal said. “But over the years, it has chilled down so much.”
Though she’s still in highschool, UCA will still be on her radar when she graduates.
“UCA is definitely in the picture. I live in Conway, so it’s really close,” she said. “I’ve heard really good stuff about it. I want to go into teaching, and they have a really good teaching program.”
Neal would like to teach kindergarten in the future, but isn’t completely sure if she’ll continue playing in a band.
“It all depends because it [playing in a band] does take a lot of time out of my schedule, and I don’t know how busy my schedule will be,” Neal said. “If I know it’s not going to be that bad, and they offer a scholarship, I’ll probably stay in a band.”
Neal’s biggest piece of advice for prospective band students is to figure out what type of music or instrument they enjoy listening to the most.
“I would ask them something like whether they like the lower brass or woodwinds,” she said. If they like the lower pieces with the more sustained notes, they’d want to go for the lower brass, but if they like the more moving parts, then definitely the woodwinds.”
No matter how far Neal goes with her success in band and clarinet, she doesn’t want the credit to go to her.
“I believe that God has given me the availability and the talent that I have, and I want to do everything I can to glorify his name. If I ever succeed or do good, I don’t want the credit, but want to give it all to him.”
