Last year, Stonington High School student Laura Marseglia was invited to perform in the National Association for Music Education’s All-National Honors Concert Band at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. This year, the junior is the first student in the region to be invited back for a second year in a row.

“It was a lot of fun,” she said about performing last year. “To play with awesome musicians and the pieces we played were awesome, it was just a fun experience.”

Marseglia, who will be playing clarinet, is one of five instrumentalists from Connecticut to perform with the honors concert band this year in Grapevine, Texas. The state is represented by 34 high school musicians in the concert band, symphonic orchestra, mixed choir and jazz ensemble.

Stonington High School band director Katrina Gottlieb said Marseglia is an outstanding musician who plays a variety of instruments for multiple ensembles at the school, including jazz band, wind ensemble and sax ensemble. Two other students from Stonington have gone to All-Nationals in recent years, but Marseglia is the first to go back-to-back years.

Marseglia said the music is hard, as can be expected at a national performance, but because she knows what to expect, she is more excited than stressed or anxious about performing. Rehearsals start as soon as students arrive Thursday, Nov. 10 and continue all day Friday and Saturday with the final performance Sunday morning at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Conference Center.