Music department holds auditions for music scholarships

Audition dates

Saturday, December 15, 2007
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008

Arrive at Booker Hall of Music by noon to check in and obtain your audition time.  Approximately 10 minutes is allotted for each audition.  All auditions will be completed by 2:00 p.m., at which time Richmond music students will offer a mini-concert for auditionees and their parents. Review a full list of the talent-based music scholarships offered by the department.

Accompanists

An accompanist can be provided, auditionees may bring their own accompanist or auditionees may perform unaccompanied.

For auditions to be accompanied by our department's faculty accompanist, please send a clear, legible photocopy of the music, (no faxes, please) to arrive at least one week in advance of the audition date, to:

    Barbara Melton
    Department of Music
    Booker Hall of Music - Room 120
    University of Richmond, VA  23173

To schedule an audition

Contact Barbara Melton in the Department of Music.

Submit a music scholarship audition form by fax, e-mail or postal mail.

Audition requirements

Voice:
Prepare two memorized songs in contrasting styles.  One piece should be performed in a language other than English.  Selections from the art song, oratorio, and operatic repertoires should be emphasized, although one folk song arrangement or musical theatre piece may be included. Voice auditionees may be asked to participate in a short ear-training exercise during the audition.

Strings:
Prepare three octave scales (double bass, two octaves) with various bowings, and an etude that serves to demonstrate technical ability.  Perform from memory two pieces in contrasting styles or a movement of a standard concerto, preferably with cadenza.

Organ:
Prepare a prelude and fugue or similar composition by J.S. Bach or a significant work by another representative Baroque composer along with a nineteenth or early twentieth century work, such as one of the works of Franck or a movement from a symphony of Widor or Vierne.  Also be ready to perform a contemporary work of a representative work by a mid- twentieth-century composer such as  Sowerby, or a movement from one of the Hindemith sonatas.

Consideration will be given to applicants with no previous organ experience who may wish to audition on the piano.  They should be prepared to perform a prelude and fugue from The Well Tempered Clavier of Bach and representative works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to demonstrate keyboard ability and level of advancement.

Guitar:
Prepare two contrasting pieces.

Brass:
Prepare two selections in contrasting styles (lyrical and technical)
and be ready to play all major scales.

Percussion:
Prepare a selection on each of the following:  marimba (plus all major scales), timpani, and snare drum.

Piano:
Prepare one memorized piece from each of the following categories:  (1) A Bach Invention or Fugue from the Well Tempered Clavier;  (2) a first or last movement in allegro or presto tempo from any Mozart Sonata or from any Beethoven sonata except those of Opus 49; and (3) a Romantic piece of your choice.  Prepare major and minor scales in four octaves. Sight reading will also be required.

Woodwinds:
Prepare an accompanied solo that demonstrates the applicant's level of technical and musical ability and a second solo or etude which contrasts in style from the accompanied solo. All major scales will be required as well as the chromatic scale over the full range of the instrument.