<p>Actually, for MT and straight up theater applications, 13 is the minimum recommended. If you think auditioning for music conservatories is tough, consider the plight of poor actors. On the other hand, there is a tradition of regional auditions held at the same day-- so there is less travel involved. Anyway, my musician-daughter went through this process last year, auditioning at 8 schools. I thought that was exhausting, but next year my actor-daughter will be auditioning.</p>
<p>Just returned home from Northwestern - overall, a very good experience. Pianists and vocalists actually audition in a separate location from the other instrumentalists. There were plenty of piano practice rooms available, and registration was quick and painless. The piano auditions were in Lutkin Hall, which is a beautiful performance space. The piano was great, and the teachers were all friendly. They let me pick which piece to start with, and then heard bits and pieces from the rest. Definitely didn’t last any longer than 15 minutes. Saturday night we were treated to a phenomenal performance by the NU Symphony that single-handedly convinced my dad that I should attend Northwestern if accepted. There were plenty of campus tours and info sessions available too, but we didn’t take advantage of these because we had already done most of that over the summer on a visit. No theory test or anything outside of the actual performance audition. </p>
<p>To everyone else auditioning at Northwestern, make sure you go to their website and download the schedule for your audition weekend - it has discounted hotel rates!</p>
<p>Baldwin Wallace instrumental audition: It was very low key. You arrive and go to a group meeting then the students are escorted by your student host to a piano test, interview and audition. The parents stay in the auditorium and hear a student and faculty panel. My son’s audition took place in the faculty members studio and had a panel of 3 including the conservatory director. He said it was very low key with a lot of give and take and seemed more like a lesson than an audition. BW also scheduled him to take a lesson after the audition which took about an hour and 1/2. After the lesson, they offered a nice lunch with the music department, some of the professors and music students. You are invited to stay and watch several workshops and take a campus tour after lunch. Overall a very welcoming and low stress day.
College of Saint Rose: Everyone meets in the new auditorium. Students leave for a music theory test and then have time to warm up before the audition. String auditions took place before a panel of 5. Quick in and out, we arrived at 10 and were out by 12 noon.
Hartt: Pretty much the same as others have previously posted except son was invited to stay for a sample lesson. Long day: it started at 8:30am and we didn’t leave until 4pm. They also, included meal tickets for lunch.</p>
<p>We just returned from d’s Hartt audition. There were a few glitches for her. First, we appreciated having an assigned practice room to warm up for her audition however, we found another violinist waiting to use the same practice room and their times overlapped by 15 minutes. Fortunately we were able to notify a Hartt student who was helping with the audition process and they rectified the situation. I could have just seen the stress this scheduling snafu would have created if we didn’t have a conversation in the hallway.</p>
<p>My daughter had about 45 minutes to eat a lunch. We had two lunch tickets for $5 off and ended up paying another $5 per meal. Upon examining the information packet, we learned the cafeteria didn’t open until 11:30 and she had to take her theory test at 12:00. We had been told it takes 7 minutes to walk to the cafeteria. My husband made a Subway run. Good thing because d was also asked to meet with a teacher for a quick lesson at 11:35.<br>
She was unable to take the 11:00 tour of the campus so my husband took the tour while d and I met with the teacher who complimented her on her excellent audition. It was nice to get some feedback. Since the theory test took almost 2 hours, she was unable to go on the 1:30 tour. </p>
<p>We also arrived early - 8:20 for registration because our audition letter informed us that interview times and the theory test would be scheduled upon arrival. We wanted to be sure we had early times since we had a 7 hour drive back home. Turns out everything was already scheduled. We waited around an hour and half. We would have loved the extra sleep. </p>
<p>Fortunately the day went pretty well considering. </p>
<p>Today I had a message on my answering machine returning a call I made Thursday with a question about a tour during the audition weekend. A tad late.</p>
<p>Flutemom - if your d’s addition at UMich is this Friday I am sending you the light re: travel. I am 2 hrs. away from UMich and they’re calling for 12-24" overnight tonight, but ending Wed. night. You may want to check in with them in the event Detroit Metro is shut down. </p>
<p>Same wishes of safe and snafu-free travel to the rest of the auditioning families ;)</p>
<p>Weather was a huge issue last year… and remains one this year. I hope everyone has safe travels.</p>
<p>had my LAST audition today for CCM (cincinnati conservatory) luckily it was a regional audition in San Fran, but the bad thing was i had to schlep two guitars and my amp and all that other good stuff 
but it was a great weekend regardless because of my berklee acceptance :0 the audition was awesome and i’m so happy its pretty much all over, i have to send a dvd to capital university but that’s not a big deal at all. my pieces went well and the admissions rep really liked the fact i did the optional classical solo for guitar, he said not many guitarists do that at all. he also mentioned they probably will only accept 1-2 guitarist…pretty crazy odds! i’m not sure how many people will audition though. the theory test was great and i had no problems, it was quite hefty though!</p>
<p>S had a guitar audition with Berklee in NYC and a composition audition/interview at NYU Steinhardt last weekend. He played a piece he wrote for guitar and vibes for both auditions. He had also prepared a Bach piece, but was not asked to play it at either audition.</p>
<p>Berklee - he was prepared for this one since he had attended the Guitar Session last summer and was invited to audition for a scholarship at that time. He was given a sight reading piece 15 minutes beforehand. He played his original piece and then the sight reading piece. He was asked to play a few chords and chord progressions, and one blues progression which he handled easily. The rest of the 15 minutes was an interview, in which he was asked what other schools he applied to, what he wanted to major in, what he has performed, and why he was interested in Berklee. The interviewer made no comments on his guitar piece or really said much of anything. Didn’t even tell my S his name!</p>
<p>NYU Steinhardt - his audition/interview was with Julia Wolfe, who is one of the better known composers on the faculty there. That was a stroke of luck because my S really hit it off with her. A completely different experience from Berklee. She made very positive comments about his guitar/vibe piece all the way through it. She listened to a bit of one of his other two portfolio pieces and really liked it as well. She is a very contemporary composer and so is my S. She is also from the same area where we live (Philadelphia suburbs.) He had enough time to tell her pretty much everything he wanted to tell her about his composition and performance background and career goals. He also followed a kid who was a more classical choral composer and played a classical piano piece, so he thinks he made a great impression on Dr. Wolfe with his more contemporary style. He was really on Cloud Nine afterward!</p>
<p>Last audition is this weekend at Belmont, and it is completely different from the others. In some ways I am glad of that because my S has not gotten bored or annoyed with repeated practicing of the same pieces. He has to play a jazz piece at Belmont in addition to his original piece and the Bach. We are really looking forward to it!</p>
<p>Just got back from d’s audition at UMichigan. I’m happy to report that we made it before the snowstorm (though just barely). My D had a lesson with the prof. on Wednesday and then the audition on Friday. </p>
<p>There was a faculty concert on Thursday night and a University Symphony Band concert on Friday night; both were really impressive. It was also nice to have something to do to keep the nerves at bay.</p>
<p>We stayed at the Holiday Inn in Ann Arbor, which I would highly recommend. The staff was very accomodating and the shuttle to and from the school was really convienent. We had a room (326) at the very end of a hallway. My D was able to practice each day starting at 7:30 am without anyone complaining!</p>
<p>On audition day, we found the school to be a bit chaotic. There weren’t nearly enough chairs/benches for waiting students/parents, and most of the ones they did have were in a freezing foyer with doors on both ends. The practice rooms were completely on a first come first serve basis. My D was lucky because her audition was early in the day. After looking for about 15 minutes, she was able to snag one. By the afternoon, I was hearing many complaints about students needing to warm up in the cold hallways because there weren’t any practice rooms available.</p>
<p>The auditions themselves seemed to run smoothly and on time which was nice and the information session was very informative.</p>
<p>2 down and 5 to go!</p>
<p>Auditions so far:</p>
<p>CCM: The most organized of all my auditions. My mom and I drove down the day before and spent the night at a LivInn Suites in Sharonville, OH. Not far away from the campus at all. Took us about 20 min. to get to CCM. It’s also reasonably priced and near a bunch of restaurants. We arrived, checked in and I attended a meeting for voice majors with some members of the faculty. I got a chance to speak to a faculty member that I had been in email contact with and then headed off to warm up. The actual audition went very well. Asked for my French art song after my Italian aria. Headed home after I was done!</p>
<p>University of Maryland: This one was a little confusing. The check in desk wasn’t able to answer some of the questions I had which was a little frustrating. My accompanist also was playing wrong notes all over the place during the actual audition. After I did my aria, song and monologue, they asked me to come and sit down with them in the audience. After a brief chat, they told me I could go and talk to some current students if I was interested. I went and they all seemed very positive about the program. </p>
<p>Rice: Getting here was so frustrating. My original flight was canceled because of the ice storm and I didn’t find out until AFTER I got to the airport. They put me on a flight early the next morning. I called Rice and explained the situation and they said the would move me to the end of the day. Perfect. I get to Houston the next morning and go to the Super Shuttle which was supposed to take me to campus. They told me it was going to be 45 min. to an hour before they would have a shuttle to take me. The shuttle comes and the driver a) drops me off last and b) drives like a madman. Do not use the Super Shuttle. I was not the only person that had a problem with them. I went straight to the music building and when I got there they informed me that they had had so many cancellations that they had ended the auditions early. They told me they could move my audition to the next morning and have me take the theory portion of my exams then. They told me to arrive the next morning at 9:30. I asked if I should be warmed up and they told me no. That they would just tell me when I was going and then I could go warm up. I got there at 9:30 and they told me I was going at 9:40! I told them I wasn’t ready and they gladly moved me back to 10:30. My audition went well and they asked me for 3 of my pieces. I then took the music history exam and then headed off to the airport to fly back to Ohio. The campus is beautiful and I stayed with a friend that was able to show me around.</p>
<p>One more to go!</p>
<p>Hi, I play violin and am planning to major in performance.
I’ve had a couple regional auditions in SF and LA
Here are how my experiences went:</p>
<p>Oberlin (SF)
Oberlin was extremely organized and busy. Mr. Manderen (sp?) took the tape, gave me some sight reading and asked various questions about my ambitions and how much I knew about the school itself. Overall it was very relaxed, although I did mess up - it was my first audition after all. There were about 50 people auditioning on every instrument. At this point Oberlin was my top school but now I"m not quite sure. I wouldn’t say I played great, but I showed my musicality and potential. This audition was about 20 minutes</p>
<p>Boston U (SF)
Boston University was probably my worst audition. Although there was the same amount of practice rooms as Oberlin (2), it was all up to me to find out where I was playing and keeping track of time. The people taking the tape were nice, however kind of intimidating for they were taking a lot of notes throughout. I would say there were 15 people audition at the regional site. This audition was about 10 minutes, although it seemed less. </p>
<p>Eastman (LA)
Eastman was probably my best audition. There was only one person from Eastman to take the tape. All there was was a sign in sheet and signs telling us which practice rooms we could use. The recorder was extremely friendly and didn’t ask many questions, but let me ask many questions and told me how much she would tape of my audition. This was about 20-30 minutes long. </p>
<p>Puget Sound (SF)
Puget Sound has the friendliest people that I have ever met. The music admissions director and an alumni were constantly checking in and making sure everything was okay. They even booted my audition up 30 minutes so I could get it over with. One of the piano faculty was there and recorded the entire audition, asking questions at the end. He was actually quite intimidating, but this may be because I had only had people in charge of admissions coming to record me. This audition was about 20 minutes long with the interview, and he asked how long my pieces were so he’d know how much to record. </p>
<p>I still have Lawrence U and UOP to go!</p>
<p>I have completed 3 out of 5 possible auditions. Still waiting to hear back from Colburn about prescreening. They lost my tape so I have to resend it.</p>
<p>Audition #1: Cleveland</p>
<p>I had to move up my audition date because I had conflicts with another audition. So it was a pretty quick turn around. Overall, the experience was positive. I was staying with a friend of mine at the institute and I felt quite at home. Unlike other schools, there’s a huge sense of community at CIM. It’s really a cool place. The faculty were also very nice and made me feel at ease. Overall, I thought I played pretty well. I played the cadenza of the Shostakovich A minor concerto and both movements of my Bach Partita.</p>
<p>Audition #2: University of Michigan (Regional: Seattle)
I flew in from Cleveland at midnight and had an 11:30 AM audition for UM. It was pretty stressful but I felt that it went really well. The admissions coordinator recorded all of my pieces and the faculty chose the movement of my concerto they wanted to hear. My audition was quite length. The time slot was for 20 minutes but I’m pretty sure I was in there closer to 30-40 minutes. The admissions coordinator knows my current professor really well. It was very comfortable and quite chill.</p>
<p>Audition #3: UT Austin
At the end of the week, friday, I flew to Austin. I stayed with a friend of mine who is a grad student there. I felt my audition went pretty well. I played the 3rd movement of my concerto and a movement of my Bach partita. </p>
<p>I felt that things went pretty smoothly because I was staying with friends when I had to fly. I’m from the seattle area so there was no issue getting there. When I did undergrad auditions it was a little stressful because I didn’t really know what was going on. Applying as a transfer has made the audition process a lot easier because I know what to expect. I leave for Chicago tomorrow and will be doing audition number 4 at Northwestern!</p>
<p>my sister audition list is this ,Rice,Sunny Purchase,BU, Belmont University, Eastman , Baylor University, Peabody , Berklee , Ithaca College, Juilliard School,Oberlin Conservatory,today is her audition at Belmont (voice)</p>
<p>I am done with auditions! My last two auditions were Lawrence University and University of the Pacific</p>
<p>Lawrence University
There were not many students auditioning for Lawrence U on the day I went. I think there were 10 or so at the SF regional site. During the audition I had to play through all of my pieces and a scale and arpeggio of my choice. It was my most exhausting audition, however, I went out feeling okay about how I played. I was asked where else I had applied and where the auditions were held. I believe the director of admissions proctored the audition. </p>
<p>University of the Pacific
There were many, many students auditioning for UoP today. Everyone seemed very nice. The audition itself was very brief - I played through a mvmt of a partita and less than half of my concerto. They asked where I applied and if I had any questions. </p>
<p>Overall, I believe my audition experience was alright. I am not stuck waiting for my result along with many others.</p>
<p>My son auditioned yesterday at Furman and it was a wonderful experience. They did everything they could to make it a pleasant experience, including free tickets to see the Furman Symphony and Furman Singers the night before (they were pretty dang good). While we were waiting for the concert to begin, I overheard a group of Furman students talking about someone, I suspected it was my son who sat in the row below me and my wife, but I really didn’t understand what all the commotion was. I could hear them debating as to whether or not this person was a “prospective”, eventually one of them walked down to my sons row and had a brief chat with him. The students seemed to be genuinely interested in “prospectives”, although I have to assume that they were told to make sure that they greeted anyone who appeared as if they may be a Furman auditionee. After the student returned to her seat, all the other students were asking her questions like “where is he from, what is his instrument, what does he want to major in”, etc. Also, a Furman student who happened to be an acquaintance of my son stopped to tell him “hello”, and then returned to chat with him during after the concert.</p>
<p>He was auditioning on piano and trumpet, but trumpet is his primary instrument. He has only been playing piano for about a year and honestly probably shouldn’t have been auditioning on piano, but he plays nicely so when I saw that you could audition on more than one instrument I figured "what the heck, if nothing else it will give him some experience playing piano in front of people that he doesn’t know (he has never even done a recital on piano). He did the best piano performance that he is capable of, probably not quite up to the level that was expected, but he thought it was up to the best level that he was capable of. We were not at all confident that the pieces he chose were truly appropriate, but they were what we is best at (First movement of Moonlight Sonata and all of Solfeggietto). When he was asked to sight read, he kinda froze up and just barely picked out the notes. One of the things that his private teacher has told me is that he needed to get his piano sight reading up to his playing capability, so his apparent inability to sight read during the audition was no real surprise. One of the people auditioning him (there were a total of four), asked him how he learned to play the two pieces he played (he did them entirely from memory - never even opened the music), my son really didn’t know how to respond, the guy said “did you learn to play them by ear”, then my son realized that they were implying that he couldn’t read music. He explained that trumpet was his primary instrument and that he had only been taking piano lessons for a year, he further told them that he learned the pieces by reading the music, but that it took him several months to do so. </p>
<p>About an hour after the piano audition he took a “keyboard aptitude test” which is required for placement purposes. The person giving the test asked him to play a series of chords in different ways (like inverted, etc). Once again my sons like of piano experience showed, and he wasn’t real sure what he was supposed to be doing or the meaning of the terms that they used. Every auditionee was given a name tag with an instrument and major written on it, he actually had two of them, one for piano and one for trumpet, he was still wearing the piano tag when he took the keyboard aptitude test, so I suspect that the person running the audition just assumed that he was really a piano player and assumed that he would know more than he did. Several of the other auditionees and parents that I spoke with had absolutely no piano experience, so I really don’t know how they were able to follow the keyboard aptitude instructions at all.</p>
<p>The situation got better as the day progressed. We were all invited for a meal in a very nice dining hall, as much as possible different instrument players were seated together along with the appropriate professors and some current students of the same instrument. The trumpet professor apparently is involved with the local symphony and couldn’t join us until about half way through the meal, but it was great to meet the other trumpet auditionees and two of the current trumpet students. The students told us about their experiences, we traded stories about auditions and different ensembles, turns out that my son has a LOT in common with a lot of the students there. Several current Furman students were away at a drum corps camp, it happened to be the same corps that my son has a contract with (he had to ask to be excused from the camp to audition at Furman). One of the current students at our table had also auditioned with my son for another corps and it turns out that she and my son both had similar “not-so-warm and fuzzy” feelings from their experience with that corps. The students emphasized that Furman was a very “cozy” school with every student getting personal attention and explained that they felt like they were getting a performance education that was similar to a conservatory education, but within a liberal arts framework that allowed them to take classes outside of the music field. They also told us that the individual always came first and was treated as a person and not just a “thing”. This was my opportunity to find out if the non-performance majors get the same private instruction as the performance majors do, and we were thrilled to find out that they do. When the trumpet professor came he made a point to speak with every trumpet auditionee and seemed to be super nice. I really could not have been more impressed.</p>
<p>Shortly after the meal my son took a music theory test, he thought that it was the hardest test he had ever taken. A lot of students apparently turned in their test blank, and although my son didn’t outright automatically know many answers he was able to logic through the test and felt that he did at least average. One of the current Furman students that he had talked to said that when he took the test he could only answer 6 of the 150 questions.</p>
<p>Eventually came my sons music audition and he had the opportunity to redeem himself a little from his less than stellar piano audition. He played Haydens Trumpet Concerto first and felt fairly good about that performance. They asked him to play a couple measures of it again and then gave him some tips on how he could have played it better. Then he played the Arbon version of Carnival of Venice, and again he felt like he did his best job of it. We were scared to death that he would choke on it do to big time nerves, but he didn’t. He said he felt quite at ease. Before the audition he had expressed som concerns to me that they would stop him before he got to the part that was more technical in nature (the Hayden piece is very lyrical and so is the first portion of the Arbons piece although the end of the Arbons piece is very technical and fast), so during the audition he expressed this concern and they allowed him to play the entire piece. He received several compliments and they asked him several questions - all of them were ones that I had already found on CC and we had discussed options for appropriate answers the night before (thanks CC). I think that being prepared for the questions was a huge help, but when he answered one of them they kind of chuckled and then rephrased his answer a little (almost like they were giving him the exact wording that they wanted to hear) - he just responded “yes”. He felt like they found his answers amusing because they may have picked up on the fact that he had prepared for them in advance - I don’t think that hurt him in anyway. He then did the sight reading portion of the audition and this time was actually able to do it. He thinks that he may have missed a couple of accidentals, but otherwise he felt like he did the best he could. In the end he felt like the trumpet audition was a “go” (as in “go to Furman” not “go away”).</p>
<p>I really don’t think that we could have had a better experience. The entire day was very well planned, each auditionee had what was more or less a “keeper” who was responsible for making sure that each auditionee got to the proper place by the proper time. I was quite amazed at how well they did as I really didn’t expect it. The students and parents were pretty much free to wander around, but it seemed like know matter where we were the “keepers” showed up exactly three minutes in advanced and ushered the auditionees to the proper room. They also seemed to know everyone by name, I have no clue how they accomplished that. Basically my son is bubbling over with enthusiasm for Furman, much more than what I ever would have expected.</p>
<p>Just a side note, but my son happened to also be having a recital at his “pre-college” music program at a college that was about 45 minutes away from Furman. His audition at Furman ended at the exact time it was scheduled to and we ended up making it to his recital 45 minutes in advance. He played one of the same songs at the recital that he did at the audition, so it was a thrill to me and his mother to be able to actually hear him perform (as he didn’t have that opportunity at Furman). When he went out of stage at the recital (300+ people in the audience) he had the hugest smile on his face that I have ever seen. I think that he sort of redirected any nervousness to his smile. After the recital he received a zillion complements and quite a few of those people commented on his smile. I’m just wondering if he was doing the same smile during his auditions at Furman - he is NOT a smiler at all, as a matter of fact ordinarily if he was smiling like that I would be accusing him of being on drugs.</p>
<p>PS on the Furman audition…</p>
<p>You know how I wrote that he discussed with a Furman student their experiance not having that “warm fuzzy” feeling with a drum corps ensemble? He definately had that warm fuzzy at Furman. </p>
<p>And he still has 3 more college auditions to go, neither my wife or my self will be able to attend the next two with him. I think that his experiance at Furman will give him the confidence that he needs to handle those auditions on his own with no problems - no worries at all.</p>
<p>imagep, thanks for that detailed report. I know a family whose daughter is a freshman (violist) at Furman and last time I talked to her mom, at the end of last semester, she was having a very good experience there.</p>
<p>Well, as promised, here it goes…I had my audition at Berklee yesterday. My warmup time was scheduled for 9:30 i arrived at 9:20. Check in was quick and I was pointed to a small recital hall where there were already some parents and prospectives. There our names would appear on a screen that told us to sit in a chair in the back where a student would take us to a practice room to look over the reading material. I had about 15 min and then I was led to the room where I had my actual audition. I played one of my compositions and then they asked me to play a bit of a piece by Mendelssohn that I had prepared. After that they asked me to play back some short figures and rhythms. Then we jammed a little blues for which they asked me to pick the key. Throughout the day they had several activities scheduled and you could sign tp for any one of them. They had a couple of student presentations, a student recital (which was wonderful), and several campus tours. Overall a very nice experience and the students seemed to be the ones who were running everything. Be sure to arrive the day before to account for delayed/cancelled/missed flights. I stayed at the Boston Hotel Buckminster which was cheap (for Boston) and only about 4 blocks from Berklee. From the airport I took the shuttle to the metro station, then blue line and then green line which left me a few steps from the hotel. There was a 7eleven across the street from the hotel where I bought some microwaveable meals. There was a microwave in my room. There was also a mcdonalds next to the 7eleven. On the way back to the airport today, part of the blue line was closed down but they had a shuttle bus running.</p>
<p>I attended audition day with my S at Belmont this weekend. It was a great day from start to finish. We stayed with a friend of mine who works at Belmont and lives in Brentwood, and it only took us 15 minutes to drive in to campus. Registration was very well organized and my S got the first audition time on commercial guitar, which made him very happy. He had a panel of two faculty members, who asked him a few questions about why he was there (apparently they get a lot of applicants who think they want to do commercial composition and arranging but really belong in the classical comp. program) and answered some of his questions about possible film scoring opportunites at Belmont.</p>
<p>The audition itself went pretty much exactly as we expected from the information we received beforehand. Commercial guitarists must play a jazz piece, a piece of their choosing, and a classical piece. My S played “My Funny Valentine” and one of the faculty played with him. He played the melody once, improvised over the cborsd once, and played the chords twice at different tempos. His piece of choice was his own composition and they liked it a lot. His classical piece was an adaptation of a Bach cello piece; he made one small mistake on that which they caught, but otherwise he thought he had a clean run-through of all his pieces. They had him do one sight-reading piece which he said was easy, and some chord identification. He was extremely happy when he came out and said he thought he had done very well and was not asked to dfo anything he had difficulty with. He did find out that the director of Belmont’s commercial composition and arranging department is Mark Volker, who is a guitarist and has done some work in TV and film. That was exciting to learn. We plan to follow up with an email to him to explore those opportunities a little more.</p>
<p>Later, all students took a 10-minute theory test, which my S said was really easy and basic. </p>
<p>They had an organized series of presentations for parents and students throughout the morning so everyone had something to do while the students were warming up, auditioning, and taking their theory tests. We had been there before and knew a lot about the school so we didn’t sit through a lot of that. They had a student panel at the end, but none of them were composers or guitarists, so we left early and had a winderful lunch at Bongo Java, a popular coffee shop across the street from the Curb Center.</p>
<p>My S did talk to a few other students during the morning while standing around waiting for the theory test. He hit it off with a few and that was good. He talked to one young lady who auditioned on piano and froze up on her final piece, and left in tears. That reminded me how difficult this whole field really is and how hard these young people work. These auditions are never a piece of cake!</p>
<p>After lunch, we went downtown and visited Gruhn Guitars, one of the “meccas” for guitarists in Nashville, and some of the surrounding shops. Then we drove with our friends out to Franklin, a very cute town that has a great local bookshop and a wonderful contemporary art gallery. Saturday night we returned to Belmont for their Country Showcase. Though we are not country music fans, it was a good show and fun to see how hard the students work at producing and performing. The arena was nearly full and the student performers were excellent. I’m sure a couple of them will be stars someday. Belmont also has a Rock, urban/Pop, and Christian music showcase every year.</p>
<p>Over the weekend we traveled to Chicago for D’s audition at Roosevelt CCPA for Jazz Voice. </p>
<p>We stayed at the Chicago Hilton which was 2 blocks south of the school and well within walking distance. The Hilton turned out to be a good choice. We had a room with two double beds and a nice marble bath on the 21st floor. The bath products were Crabtree & Evelyn. The room had a view of Lake Michigan and Museum Campus from one of the three windows. The cost was about $100 per night, which I got from LastMinuteTravel.com but you might be able to do even better on PriceLine. (Quick note on LastMinuteTravel: the names of the hotels are hidden until you book but they do post photos where you can often tell which hotel it is.)</p>
<p>It was colder than we expected in Chicago so it was a good thing she brought an extra audition outfit. Originally she wanted to wear a dress but instead ended up in gray pants, white shirt and navy sweater.</p>
<p>We arrived early so D was able to take the theory test before the live audition. It was lengthy but not too difficult. There were no jazz theory questions on the test, just general theory.</p>
<p>CCPA provided a pianist for the audition, which was good because it wasn’t clear whether one would be provided for jazz voice. However, she was prepared with recorded music and, also, she could accompany herself on piano as a last resort. She sang Them There Eyes and Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man. The pianist was having some trouble keeping time and the adjudicators were entertained by how she snapped her fingers to help him out. They did not ask to hear her classical piece but they did ask for some blues and improvising. There were no ear training tests. She did end up playing some piano to demonstrate her piano skills and to show an original arrangement she is working on. Since she also plays flute, the head of the Jazz department took her aside to show her some jazz flute videos. D was comfortable that the audition went well and she really enjoyed it.</p>
<p>The music conservatory is located on the 9th floor of main Roosevelt building (the Auditorium Building) overlooking Grant Park and Lake Michigan. The building is very historic and beautifully maintained. The location in Chicago couldn’t be better and the area seems very safe with combined security with several nearby colleges. Roosevelt is in the process of constructing a new building that will house additional classrooms and dorm space. The current dorm is combined housing with Columbia College and Robert Morris so there are no issues with not having enough room to house the students for all 4 years. I was impressed that the dorm contained sound-proofed music practice rooms. The folks in the admissions office couldn’t have been nicer, where we got a spur-of-the-moment campus tour – our tour guide, Jonathan, was wonderful.</p>
<p>D was impressed with the Jazz voice faculty. The program itself is only a few years old. It is small enough to afford personalized attention and performance opportunities. </p>
<p>If you end up visiting the area, for food we would recommend Yolk for breakfast and Buddy Guy’s Legends for dinner and live blues music.</p>