<p>Do I need to take music scores with me to grad school auditions?</p>
<p>Is it possible that they'll ever ask to see the score like at competitions? I'm thinking not since they'll just ask for small sections of pieces. I have my actual book scores of my music that I practice from, but for auditions that I have to fly to, I just want to bring the music scanned in on my iPad instead, so that I'm not hurting my back carrying all those books as extra weight around the airport the day before an audition. All my music has to be memorized for the auditions since I'm a pianist, so the music bringing it along for me is just to always have it with me in case I want to check something while in a warm up room, but I don't think they would ever ask for the score, right? </p>
<p>For all of my son’s undergrad auditions, no music ever had to be supplied (unless for an accompanist which would not apply to you as a pianist). I have never seen any indication that grad school auditions would be any different and do not believe that they would be. In the absence of any specific direction requiring you to bring the music, I would not bother bringing it. For piano, virtually any rep that you would play, would be very familiar to the auditioning panel. The only piece of rep that my son played that was not very familiar to his panels was the 20th century requirement at Juilliard for violin; the tradition at Juilliard is that they never ever request the 20th century piece–for him they did, but even though none of them knew the piece, they still did not request a score.</p>
<p>I don’t remember any school requesting the score at my undergrad auditions either. I’ll ask my teacher when I get back to school about it to be sure. I have one 20th century piece that’s not super well-known, would be possible they could ask for a score maybe. </p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that every one of my son’s prospective grad schools directed that he bring all original, bound scores to live auditions – no copies or single sheets allowed. If not every school, then all schools but one or two out of 6. It was a real pain in the butt because he had to either pack all of his scores in a suitcase, which meant a bigger suitcase AND a big infringement on the 50lb checked baggage allowance, OR he had to choose to carry all of that weight on in a super-heavy carry-on bag! I do remember that one or two schools never asked for a single score during his auditions – but I also remember that some schools did ask for a piece or two of his music. All of his schools were clear in their directions, so it certainly wasn’t ambiguous. But he was quite tempted to disobey! What a pain in the patootie to travel all across the country with all that music! Still, he didn’t want to take the risk of getting caught without the music after such clear directions, and so, a big, heavy stack of bound scores accompanied him to every audition. </p>