COLUMBUS DAY FALLS on Oct. 8 this year, meaning no school on Monday. But instead of spending their day off relaxing at home, 22 Uni musicians will participate in auditions for the Illinois Music Educators Association district music festival.

According to its Web site, the IMEA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting music education at every level and helping to advance the profession of music educators.

Every year, the organization sponsors festivals for each of nine geographical districts in Illinois. Champaign-Urbana is part of District 3, a roughly 75-by-75-mile region that stretches north to include Bloomington-Normal and Kankakee.

This year, according to Uni fine arts head Rick Murphy, 16 Uni students are auditioning at the high school level: six strings, four winds, and six vocalists. There are also six subfreshmen auditioning at the junior high level. There is no statewide festival at that level, so their journey ends at district.

Last year 14 Uni students earned all-district high school honors, and three subfreshmen won junior district honors.

The Columbus Day auditions for the district festival will be held at Bloomington High School. According to Murphy, results from the auditions should be released later that week, around Oct. 11.

The district jazz festival will then be held Nov. 3 at Normal Community High School, while the district festival featuring the other honored musicians will take place at Illinois State University on Nov. 17.

After the all-district festival, musicians will be selected to participate in the all-state music festival based on their performance at the district auditions. The all-state festival is scheduled for Jan. 30 to Feb. 2 in Peoria, where the participants will spend three days rehearsing beforehand.

An even higher honor is to play in the all-state honors concert, which is for musicians with “exceptional talent.” The honors concert starts right after the regular all-state concert.

Like every year, you can expect Uni’s musicians to face some tough competition.

“They’re all good,” says senior Lucy Zhang about the other competitors. Zhang has participated in IMEA since her freshman year.

But Zhang and her fellow musicians aren’t just auditioning for the honors.

“District is fun,” she says, “and state is fun. It’s like [district] times three.”

This year, Zhang is trying for a first violin part. Keep an eye out for her and the other 21 musicians as they work to impress judges at the district auditions.