A ticket to see a high school performance was his ticket to becoming a walking instrument. Senior Milo Wilson’s journey in earning an All-state title for choir, started with a dying passion he pursued only in January of his second semester of junior year at Paso Robles High School.
While Wilson is a part of PRHS’ advanced performing choir group, Forté, for only a year, before choir, his time at school was occupied with PRHS’ band. He demonstrated how well skilled in both choir and band he is by climbing the ranks and accomplishing many titles including: Coastal Region Singer, All-state Singer, Tenor Section Leader for Forté, Vice President of Forté, Drum Captain for Band, and 2025 Rising Star Scholarship Recipient.
Wilson registered for Coastal Regionals in early September, then evaluated in late September to be scored out of 100 points. In order to make regionals, Wilson had to score in the top three percent of scores within the region. Those same scores will be then submitted to audition for state. Wilson says “it’s the top 3% because it’s estimated that about 10,000 kids a year audition, and then 300 students [would classify within the top 3% to advance to all-state].”
Wilson’s hard-work, practice and determination paid off during All-state auditions where it required 40 points for a solo, 20 points for sight reading, 15 points for scales and triads, and 25 for internal memory. Because Wilson took that challenge head on, he was provided the opportunities of “meeting new singers from other places and other cultures that [he] I haven’t [hadn’t] been exposed to before.”
Wilson expressed how refreshing it was to meet people and their different perspectives about singing and their experiences such as private lessons; an opportunity that is rare for him within Paso Robles’ area for a private instructor. In turn, through his excellent performance in the PRHS Band program, he received a scholarship for private lessons in January through April of 2025 for private lessons.
He was also able to experience meeting and learning under music educators and directors with a background of teaching at CSU Dominguez Hills and Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia. They offered training, new perspectives, unique repertoire selection, and self-arranged pieces.
“My directors were both really cool and insanely knowledgeable,” Wilson said.
This experience has provided Wilson the skillset of leadership and education experience with appliances at UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, Humboldt, UC Hawaii Pacific with plans to double major in biological sciences and music education after his educational career at PRHS.
