We have to re-audition for the choir every 18 months or so, and I have mine at 11.30 this morning (in about three hours’ time). I know that re-auditions are necessary to maintain high standards within the choir, but I loathe, loathe, loathe doing them! There’s nothing quite so terror-inducing as walking into a room and being watched by a panel of four exceptionally good musicians while you murder your prepared piece or flail about during the sight reading test.
Musicians - does it ever get any easier doing auditions?
Yeah, you fall into a routine if you do it often enough. I don’t know that you ever get past a certain amount of nervousness, though.
Is your re-audition different from your initial audition? Ours is a little easier, or at least a little shorter. It’s more confirmation that you haven’t begun to suck. At least for most of us.
Auditions now are certainly tougher than they were when I first joined, about 12 years ago. We’ve had a change of musical director since then, and the current director is more strict.
I don’t know whether ours are short or long. They go for about 15 minutes or so. Shorter if you’re obviously OK, longer if you’re borderline. The format is:
a prepared piece (this time round to be chosen from Britten’s arrangements of Folk Songs of the British Isles. I’m doing The Miller of Dee);
a musical memory test. An excerpt is taken from one of your last five programs and you’re asked to sing it. I assume the point is to gauge how well you retain repertoire;
scales, to determine whether you’re correctly placed i.e. first or second;
a rhythm test, to be clapped;
an interval test;
a sight reading test. In previous years it’s been an SATB piece, and you’ve had to sing your own part, but lately it’s been those ‘exam style’ sight reading tests: vague, meaningless melodies with nasty intervals thrown in to sort the men from the boys.
Wow. Makes me quake to think about it. Rock session work can have similar standards, as can working covers bands, but checking out new players is far less stressful.
I think our initial audition is two pieces, one in English, one not, range test, tonal memory, and two sight reading bits: one solo and one choral. The re-audition is one piece, a choral sight reading bit and a short range test, really just to see if you need to be moved within the section. I never stress out about re-auditions, but yours sounds more intense.
What I was told by a music professor a few years ago is that the traditional good luck statement for music is “In bocca al lupo” or “into the mouth of the wolf” and the response is “crepi” or “may it die”. I have no idea as to the universality of this tradition but in bocca al lupo, Cunctator.
You get less nervous over the years, but I don’t think it ever becomes fun.
That’s a fairly intense list of requirements, and I’m guessing one of the things that you didn’t mention on the list, languages, may come up in the ‘pieces from the last 5 concerts’ portion. (Here’s hoping that Lord of the Rings concert was at least 6 programs away.)
One of the things that really helped was being on the other side of the table for a change. You really want everyone to do their very best, and it gives you a whole new insight into what works and what doesn’t work.
The accompanist was pleased with my folk song choice because I was the first person to sing The Miller of Dee. She said she’d played The Sally Gardens about twenty times this week.
I came a cropper at one point in the sight reading, but I think I recovered OK. And I nailed the B flat scale, so I think I’ll be staying in the first tenors.
Yes, you’re right, this is usually where the foreign language bit comes in (unless it’s already covered under the prepared piece. For the last lot of auditions the prepared piece had to be in German).
The Lord of the Rings was actually on my ‘last 5 programs’ list, but I didn’t score any Elvish or Orcish. Instead our musical director chose the least recent program on my list, from way back in November last year: Monteverdi Vespers. It was dead easy. I remembered it well, and singing in Latin is hardly a struggle for me. I do it every Sunday. He was mixing up the choices quite a bit though. The person before me got a chorus from the St John Passion (in German), and the one after me - poor soul - got thrown a passage from Harmonium.
I’m very pleased that it’s over for another 18 months or so. Now I can concentrate on our next program, a tour of the provinces, American Journeys.
Yipes. The last time I had to re-audition for choir it consisted mainly of the director trying to teach me how to count. (Yes, I managed to get as far as Grade 8 RCM in singing without ever really learning how. Oops)
We’re a little more casual on the muscial knowledge.