Center-Stanton senior to perform at Carnegie Hall

BISMARCK, N.D. - Last week we told you about three North Dakota teens headed to New York City to sing at Carnegie Hall.

Tonight, we have the story of another talented home-grown musician who is also headed to the Big Apple.

Katelynn Albers is a senior at Center-Stanton, and in February she’ll be packing her saxophone and heading to New York.

While she’s excited about this trip, it isn’t the first-time music has given her a chance to travel.

Seventeen-year-old Katelynn Albers’ has discovered her passion.

“Music is definitely my passion,” she said.

The Center-Stanton senior has been playing the piano since second grade and the saxophone since fifth grade.

“I love the saxophone,” Albers said.

A photo taken when Albers purchased her first saxophone as a fifth grader proves it was love at first sight.

“When you think about it it’s just a bent piece of metal in the shape of like almost like a swan with like Pearl keys. And it can make such beautiful music,” she said.

Albers plays both the alto and the baritone saxophone.

“The baritone sax has gotten me these different opportunities,” she said.

She’ll play the baritone sax in the 2023 Honors Performance Symphonic Band in New York City in February.

“It’s definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Albers said.

She’s also performed in Washington, D.C., and played in her first all-state band as an 8th grader.

Lacey Hanson has been Albers’ music teacher since she was in kindergarten.

“Seeing her grow as a musician from age five to now is amazing,” said Hanson.

She describes Albers as a goal-setter, and a goal-achiever with a natural gift for music.

“I can teach the rhythms I can teach the notes, but to teach that true passion for music and that love is something they must feel,” said Hanson. “That’s been something I’ve seen with her from even a young age. She’s just naturally felt that and that makes everything so much easier because she doesn’t just play notes on the page. She plays the music.”

In a couple of months, she’ll be playing that music on the big stage in the Big Apple.

Albers plans to make music her career; she will major in music therapy, which she says combines her two passions of music and helping others.

Copyright 2022 KFYR. All rights reserved.