lorelei2702

Absolutely! (This must be their version of the "likely" letter.) Congratulations! Your friend must be wondrous, too!

gudien

Hat, I was there when Peabody administrator talking about 15 secs. My D auditioned at Peabody for Piano Performance. I learned a lot from parents meeting.
After five trips to different cities/schools, she likes all of them and doesn't mind going any one of them.
The experience of audition trip is amazing!Although I'm glad that D is the only one in family majoring music. Searching best deal of hotel, flight tickets, finding place to eat, waiting for practice room,driving long distance,....,etc. I'm glad it's almost over.

stringfollies

That 15 second thing is really making us rethink the order my son has played his pieces in because his concerto (played after bach) shows off his greatest strength at the beginning (big, rich sound). oh well....

cartera45

You are right - start with your strongest piece to be sure it is heard. With some panelists, you play one and then they pick so you risk them not hearing the strongest piece at all if you don't choose it.

stringfollies

Strongest in the opening, but until the last couple weeks it was riskier. The Bach was more steady, but his greatest strength is the romantic concerto. Most of these kids play Bach well. For violin, they here all your pieces, luckily.

cartera45

Oh, I know nothing about strings obviously. I think the 15 second comment probably refers to weeding people out that are clearly not qualified - of course, you might think the pre-screening CD would do that.

musicianmom

S learned something that might be useful for next year's violin auditioners or anyone finishing this year.

At least in the year he auditioned, the schools he auditioned for had varying requirements regarding Bach movements and Paganini (or other etude) offerings. Some wanted 2 movements and etudes, some only one. S had two movements and two caprices prepared to cover all requirements.

He began with his concerto (this was his pick for his most comfortable work.) Then, the auditioners would generally say something like "Let's hear some Bach." If the school required both movements, they usually heard some of both. If they only required one movement, however, S would say, "I'll play the fugue" which gave him the opportunity to play the movement he thought showed to best advantage. He did the same with Paganini when asked for that - he had two prepared and he selected the caprice he felt best with (interestingly, this varied by day!), announcing it briefly before he played. No school asked to hear more than one caprice.

It was a small thing and not possible at all auditions, but I think it felt like it gave him a bit of control.

-Allmusic-

In every case, my son has chosen his first piece, and then the adjudicators have chosen the ones after that.

He did "place" his works on his repertoire sheet in such a way as to encourage a certain order or sequence, and it pretty much worked out. There was some variability in how much of any piece they heard...some heard almost entire movements or piece, some stopped him and moved on to do something else.

The only thing with leaving something really technically challenging till later (or hoping they won't call for it) is that one can get tired. Everywhere, my S played his fastest and most challenging piece last, and there was no recovery time between it and sight reading or anything else. I don't know what one could have done differently, because playing it first would have potentially compromised the more lyrical pieces. This was his teacher's recommendation, not to do that one first, and she was sure the adjudicators would know not to ask for it before the end, which they didn't, but it may have been a risky move.

marslizard

Auditions are finished----almost. My D was scheduled for a vocal audition at Otterbein this morning. During the drive to Westerville she got a terrible migraine. The people at Otterbein were extremely sympathetic and we were able to reschedule on April 1. So the good news: she still has an opportunity to audition. The bad news: almost another month to wait!!!!
D auditioned at Baldwin Wallace last Saturday. Has anyone received a letter from BW? She has been admitted to Bowling Green State and Butler. Any pros or cons about either or these schools?

L. Fortissimo

These stories are great to pass along to students so that if there are problems with a piece they won't think the entire audition is ruined and get nervous or give up.

Just a Dad in Oh

Letters from BW go out right around the 20th from what we were told. Sorry that you missed Otterbein today. The weather was perfect and everyone there was warm, genuine and friendly. My D had a great audition there and I am happy to say that the audition phase is over!, I still have a job, not much vacation time left though and we can all relax here this weekend in time for the next snowstorm.
JD

ksstringdad

My D just finished her last audition for violin performance at U of Mich - hooray! The last six weeks have just been a whirlwind. Overall, she feels pretty good about the auditions - she just wants to get positive news from at least one school. Life can finally get back to somewhat normal. Hopefully, she can salvage her grades - her teachers have been pretty understanding. She's excited about finally getting to do some new pieces. Big relief. Now I guess we all just start waiting and anxiously getting the mail. We might want to start a thread for next year's folks called - "things I wish I knew that I know now." Good luck everyone!

violadad

ksstringdad, here's a link to an earlier hindisght post. Since Hindsight is 20/20, What Would You Have Done Differently?

I'm going to bump it in case anybody wants to read or add to it.

cartera45

ksstringdad - you bring up a good point. My D was really looking forward to putting her audition rep away for now. She has been working on some new things with her teacher for some time, while keeping the audition rep ready, but didn't feel like she could really focus on anything fun. She was also being super careful about her voice. It's been nice hearing her sing along with her Ipod again.

momnipotent

DS and I are due at SnOberlin tomorrow for an audition. This snowstorm is not what we were thinking of for a March audition date!!!!