Woodmore High School senior Ariana Trebus has a vision of one day playing professionally with a symphony orchestra.

“My big dream would be to play in London for an orchestra,” she said. “I like England a lot and I just love that city in England. I watch BBC America all the time and I love the (British) culture.”

Trebus has never been to England, but she’s taking baby steps to get there.

Floyd Trebus turned his daughter on to music years ago, but not the music that gets you a spot with the Boston Pops.

“My dad always listened to classic rock, like Pink Floyd and AC/DC,” Trebus said. “That turned me on to that (genre). Classical music has been more recent, since I’ve gotten more serious about playing.”

Trebus has been a member of Woodmore’s jazz and marching bands all through high school. She plays the trumpet in the jazz band and the mellophone in the marching band. She also plays the French horn and is learning to play the piano.

“A mellophone is sort of like a French horn,” Trebus said, “but it looks like an oversized trumpet.”

In July, Trebus auditioned to play the French horn with the Toledo Youth Orchestra, which plays local concerts in the Peristyle at the Toledo Museum of Art. Sandra Clark, a horn player in the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, contacted Trebus’ private teacher about getting her involved with the youth orchestra.

“It was nerve-wracking,” Trebus, 18, said of the audition. “I didn’t think I had a chance to get in so I wasn’t completely nervous at the time. I was just doing it for the experience. I had known the piece I was playing for a while, so I wasn’t nervous about that at all.”

Trebus was later informed that she was chosen to play in the Toledo Youth Orchestra, but she had to go back in August to find out where she would be seated in the orchestra.

“I was more nervous that time, but I did well,” she said. “I got principal chair, which means I’m basically the leader of the horn section. I found out the day of the first practice (Oct. 25). They have this attendance sheet that lists you on it and Jamie Sampson, who is like the youth orchestra director, just checked my name off and said, ‘Congrats, you got principal chair.’ I went and warmed up, because we had rehearsal after that.”

The Toledo Youth Orchestra is comprised of more than 170 musicians, including five in the French horn section. Trebus said being chosen to play in the orchestra was “huge.”

“It was kind of a testament to my hard work,” she said. “The fact that I had only been taking private lessons for a year and a half at that time, the odds were kind of against me. I worked really hard on my music. I practiced two or three times a day in my bedroom. My mom and dad were fine with it, but my sister was the one who had the problem with it. She said it was really loud. When I had my window open in the summer, you could hear it all the way down the street.”

The Toledo Youth Orchestra had its first performance in November at the Peristyle.

“It was really, really fun and it was a great experience,” Trebus said. “The Peristyle was about half full. I’ve never played on a stage with bright lights, and you couldn’t really see out in the audience. I was playing for them, and that was important. The acoustics in the room are amazing and the music just bounces all around you. It was really fun.”

The youth orchestra’s next concert is Jan. 27 in Columbus, at the Ohio Music Education Association conference. Its next local concert is Feb. 13 at the Peristyle.

Trebus, who has a 3.8 GPA and is a member of the French Club at Woodmore, has played with other orchestras besides the Toledo Youth Orchestra. She has played with the Terra Chamber Arts Orchestra in Fremont and she recently played with the Northwest Regional Orchestra.

“The (NRO) is kind of like an honors band, but a step up from that,” Trebus said.

She plans to attend Cleveland State University next fall and major in music performance.

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