On Feb. 19, senior Nathan Doffing played at the KSHSAA State Piano Festival. Doffing played “Praeludium” composed by McDowell.

Doffing said he played through the piece several times the day of the event.

“Whenever it came time for state piano, I practiced through it around three times, the whole piece, and then I went into the auditorium, and I watched the competitors play before me, and I listened to them play, and then whenever it got time for me to play what I did was for my warmup I just played through the entire piece.” 

Doffing said it can be a challenge playing on a piano that he is not used to.

“The touch of the piano is different from the one I warmed up on, so to negate that I just played the entire piece for my warmup, so that definitely helped,” he said.

He said he felt like he played to the best of his ability.

“I got done playing it, I think I messed up only like twice, and then I got done playing it, and I was pretty confident that that performance was the one.”

Doffing received a I rating for his performance, the best score possible.

“I felt like it was well deserved, I felt like as soon as I stood up from the piano I was like ‘nice that was the one’, I just knew it, it felt right.”