| i agree about the prescreening being too stressful. my son has been to the iu summer string academy for 4 years and is very anxious to audition at iu. otherwise, we wouldn't have bothered with any schools requiring prescreening. he has been told by many professionals that he is very gifted, but a little behind the curve technically for the top music schools, but he has changed teachers and been working very hard to try to get there this year with the thought that he might have to do the whole thing again next year (yech!!!) i must say that his improvement since september is more than dramatic. nevertheless, the need to perfect an imperfectly learned concerto for prescreening which he won't even use for his live auditions was very time-consuming and unfortunate. i hope he gets his iu audition out of it or it will be a complete wash. he has a newly minted and beautiful-sounding concerto now with few of the old problems built in and almost ready for his first audition on January 26th. there is no question that his musical ideas are special and his sound sometimes is exquisite. he did put easier bach movements on the recording and will play one that is more advanced for auditions - bach is never a waste. wish him luck because he really needs it. |