<p>Just a word of caution to those booking college visit and audition trips and considering Westchester Airport (HPN) as an alternative to using LGA or JFK.</p>
<p>While it is conveniently located to NYC geographically, there is no easy public transportation into NYC.</p>
<p>There is bus service that will get you to the metronorth rail eventually.</p>
<p>There is no direct rail link to the airport, nor is there scheduled limo/shuttle service in and out of the airport. That is all on a per use contract basis and can be expensive.</p>
<p>There are car rental agencies on-site if you want to go that route.</p>
<p>For information, SUNY Purchase is a short hop, easily accesible with a vehicle rental.</p>
<p>Wow, this is like striking the gold of audition wisdom!<br>
Looking ahead at the senior year winter months, I am pretty overwhelmed - and you all know just what it is like. We live in Texas, but most of these auditions are in the east. S is a bassist. I assume we'll fly and rent a large something, do the audition, go back home and do it all again 5 or 6 times. Not all of the dates are out yet, but many weekends are already blocked out with several important given mandatory music events. This will be very tricky.<br>
We borrowed a flight case for Tanglewood. We will need to invest in one for the future trips.<br>
I'll tell you what - I have 4 kids. 2 in college, 2 not yet. Money is sooooo scarce. I would love to hear any advice that will help us!!!</p>
<p>I planned and went to my audition myself at McGill since my parents don't really support me going into music and become a starving street artist. I just contacted an alum from my high school who goes to McGill to let me crash in his dormroom for the weekend, took a greyhound bus from Cleveland to Montreal, found my way from the station to the dorm in freaking 2 ft of snow, practiced and just went. The journey was nowhere as intimidating as the actual audition. </p>
<p>Don't practice a lot two days before the big day, practice months before hand. Prepare well, stay calm, the judges are usually quite nice and let you play again if you make mistakes. There will be tons of volunteers who wander around the music buildings to answer questions and help new students.</p>
<p>This audition article that violadad linked to is very interesting, and I printed it out for my son to read the section on The Audition Day. Getting a shy kid to do the follow up...eek, but I agree it is important.</p>
<p>I'm adding on to this venerable thread rather than onto a more recent one for the very reason that it's a sticky thread and I would like to chime in that audition experiences differ even in the same school, and perhaps from year to year.</p>
<p>I just got a call from S and H regarding S's vocal audition at BU, which occurred half an hour ago. There were 5 people in the room, not including the accompanist (who was excellent, S says), and he sang all three required pieces and did some sight singing. (H could hear him from the hallway!) He is not auditioning for Tanglewood, so that wasn't a factor in having a large contingent of faculty. Just thought I'd mention it, as it wasn't a video-only audition in this case.</p>
<p>Hi, My son has a couple of auditions scheduled for the next few weeks. Does he need to provide his evaluators with the music he tends to audition with?</p>
<p>teachermom, most schools require music for the adjudicators, and the accompianist. The specific format, number of copies, etc, are normally found on the schools audition info/requirements webpages, or in the paperwork confirming audition date and time.</p>
<p>If you can't locate the info, do not hesitate to call or email the music admissions department(s).</p>
<p>My son always made copies of the music for the adjudicators. He had the original with him as well...and the piano part (which wasn't used as he played unaccompanied). He offered the music to the folks. Some took it and others didn't. For some of his auditions, he had to send the copies in advance. In ALL cases he was required to have the original copy with him.</p>
<p>It varies from school to school and instrument to instrument. For example, my daughter did not have to provide any copies of the music she played at any of her auditions. All of them were unaccompanied and the solo material in the double bass world is somewhat limited, so the teachers already knew the commonly used audition pieces and orchestral excerpts forwards and backwards.</p>
<p>If you can't find the information on the web site, definitely give them a call. If you are going to hand out photocopies, make sure that you have the original with you.</p>
<p>Interesting responses! In our violin experience, providing music to adjudicators was limited to competitions - often 2 or 3 copies, original, no copies. (My observation when competitions were open to the public was that these scores were rarely referred to - only in cases where one of the judges was a non-string player.) </p>
<p>Auditions for the violin faculties at the conservatories where S auditioned did not require copies of music. S did need to provide music for pianist for accompanied auditions. Some schools indicated that if the music was not well known, the pianist should be offered a copy in advance of the audition day. S normally carries his music in his case; if anyone had wanted it, it was there, but it was never necessary.</p>
<p>Goes to show the differences between schools and instruments! I agree that you shouldn't hesitate to ask. We found the several Admissions Departments that I conatced quite helpful throughout the process.</p>
<p>My son auditioned on cello at both the undergrad and grad level. He never had to give copies of his music to the panels, only for his accompanist. And he only needed a pianist for a couple of grad school auditions, not at the undergrad auditions.</p>
<p>My daughter has had 2 vocal auditions the last 2 weekends. In neither case did the panel request a copy of the music, although she had brought extra (photo) copies just in case, as well as the originals in the books. She made a binder for the (provided) accompanists-who were both excellent- with copies of her 4 songs. She does have one audition coming up where we had to send in copies of the music ahead of time, but they said "bring the originals and we will destroy the copies the day of the audition"- which seems a little weird to me. Guess it varies from place to place, you just have to follow the directions they give you and be prepared for contingencies!</p>
<p>Here's a just-in-case tip: When my oldest S was playing for a piano competition once, we got there and discovered he'd grabbed the wrong piece of music. It wasn't for him, of course, but for the judges. The competition was held at a university, so we hightailed it to the school's music library, and they allowed us to borrow the music. Apparently they were used to things like that, because they had a procedure all in place. And told us to number the measures lightly in pencil, and erase them before we returned the music.</p>
<p>I don't recommend adding that sort of stress to your auditions, of course, but if it happens, there's a possible solution!</p>
<p>It does depend on the school. All of the schools that needed pre-screen recordings had to have the music sent to them 10 days before audition. D had a few other schools that only required they bring music with them. I will say, the schools that received music ahead of time, had much better accompanists for obvious reasons. Even if she sent copies ahead of time, you are required to bring the original music with you to the audition.</p>
<p>We saw accompanists for NYC conservatory undergrad auditions, and only Juilliard required copies to be pre-sent (directly to accompanist who was chosen and contacted from list). Rehearsal time required an extra payment. This was a few years ago, for a string instrument, and things might be different now. </p>
<p>Experienced voice teachers know the repertory, and there is seldom a need to look at the music. Occasionally they will not remember what the range is on an aria (which they will ask each other), or they will inquire what key or edition (Baroque usually) was used for an art song.</p>