Quality of pre-screen recordings

ScreenName48105
Fri, 22 May 2015 12:42:38 +0000

@Jb, thanks for that perspective. To be honest, a video pre-screen doesn’t worry us half as much as an audio-only one. My son’s in jazz, so everything is accompanied. We’ve made various audition recordings and videos before, so between us and his teacher, we have the wherewithal to do them. So, actually, we weren’t all that worried about them beyond the usual logistics stuff like scheduling until Juilliard came into the picture.

We’ve come to realize that we don’t know anyone who has actually gotten an audition for Juilliard’s jazz program through their prescreen process. We know a few musicians who were in their pre-college program and had their prescreens waived. Last year, my son’s combo played for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and Wynton invited their drummer in for an audition. But we also know a bass player from the previous year who was one of the top high school jazz bass players in the country, and the only school that wasn’t tripping over themselves offering full-ride scholarships and then some was Juilliard; he didn’t even get past the prescreen. Obviously, there are students who get past the prescreen but the entire jazz program, graduate and undergrad, is only 45 students, so it’s conceivable that many, perhaps even most, of the auditions granted for the very few freshman openings in jazz are via other means than the prescreen.

So, I guess we’re trying to decide whether we want to invest in “whatever it takes” (if we can even figure that out) or write it off as winning the lottery odds. I’m on the fence, to be honest. And, just so it’s clear, it’s not as if Juilliard is this mythical dream school. He had no interest in going there until he met and played for their sax teacher at a masterclass. He then had a lesson with him and just really liked him. We visited the school recently and he really loved the vibe there and I, as the parent, can see all sorts of aspects about the school that I think would be a great fit for him. That said, life will definitely not end if he doesn’t get in.