No pressure.

When the call came in, Steven Moore had about 10 minutes to decide if he wanted to represent his country as part of the United States’ 600-member Olympic Games orchestra in China this summer.

Turns out that was plenty of time.

Moore, a 17-year-old junior (senior-to-be) at Sequim High School, joins SHS senior Matt Grey and Sequim High 2007 grad Naomi Fosket as part of the exclusive orchestra headed to Beijing for China’s Olympic Games.

But it only happened thanks to a saxophone player who had to bow out. With an opening in the orchestra needing to be filled, and filled fast, Brad McDavid, the University of Washington band director and a section leader for the orchestra, recalled a fine tuba player from Sequim. He put in a call to Moore, who said he had about 10 minutes to decided if he could go.

Moore’s parents helped foot the bill — one that cost Grey and Fosket about $4,400 each — within a day.

“(Money) wasn’t really an issue; they really wanted me to go,” Moore says.

Moore has been playing tuba since seventh grade and marched with the instrument. In an unlikely set of circumstances, the Sequim Community Foundation recently donated money to the high school band to buy a new sousaphone.

Now, Moore is headed to China with a brand new instrument, thanks to a giving community and a little bit of luck.

“The rest of the group had about two years to raise funds; Steven had 24 hours,” says SHS band director Vern Fosket. “The community has come through big time. It is not a cheap endeavor to do this.”

The three young musicians are to stay in Orchestra Village, similar to Athlete’s Village, in a five-star hotel.

The orchestra is slated to play six songs, among them the Olympic Games theme and “Seventy-six Trombones” from “The Music Man,” Moore said. What’s not clear is if the band will be playing for the opening ceremonies.

“I know we’re going to be a good deal of sightseeing,’ Moore says, including the Great Wall of China.

Before then, the orchestra is slated for a few more practices, a parade in Seattle at the end of July and, at the tail end of July, to board a plane across the Pacific for two weeks in China.