Hi everyone! I am a junior in high school, and I am thinking about sending a 2-minute required audition video for the All-National orchestra. I am from a very competitive state, and usually place concertmaster in my elite city orchestra (the best out of 3 in my city) as well as the state MEA festivals. On a scale of 1-10 (1: school orchestra, 10: Juilliard or Curtis), what’s the selectivity of this auditioning process? And for those who have been accepted and participated in this, how was the experience?
Hi, Ultimate, my D got in the All-National Orchestra as principal on her instrument a while back She’s at a conservatory now and is doing pretty well. That said, she did not get into the 2 most competitive music schools for her instrument and the ones who did get in weren’t in All-National. I say this because, although the All-National ensemble is very strong (D compared it as a cut below New York Youth), I don’t think the “best of the best” necessarily apply. There’s a whole sub-culture of precollege kids in the big cities who don’t even partake in their school music festivals (All-County, All-State, All-National). I think what helped my D get in was the fact that she submitted a video from a live fundraising recital that she organized and presented. The pastor at the church she performed had professional audio recording equipment and he recorded it for free and I simply dropped that audio into the video I shot. Out of the 45 minutes of music she performed, I pulled out the best two minutes (I think excerpts from 2 pieces) and sent it in. I think it probably changes year to year who comes out for these auditions. The experience itself is really great because they house the kids in a gorgeous 5-star hotel in Nashville and you’re with a very select kind of kid that can become a lifelong friend. Unfortunately, they don’t have a great performing space. If they would just use the Nashville Symphony’s Orchestra Hall, it would be the dream experience for these kids. I’m sure it’s different from year to year, maybe even locations but they’ve been in Nashville for the past 2 so I am thinking they might like it there? I hope this helps. If you want more information, send me a PM and I can share more. Best of Luck!
Thank you very much for your very detailed response! I am encouraged that this program isn’t filled with Juilliard acceptees; I will soon send in my application. Again, thanks for your honest reflection, dgs650!
Glad you found it useful! Just take the audition and see how it goes. At the very least, you get to pull yourself together and see how it all flies. There’s no such thing as a bad experience. Again, if you need more info, PM me. Good luck!
Hey, at the last minute I decided to audition for Nafme too. I literally just decided today and I’m picking up my All-State piece again. I know the deadline is not until May, but have you already sent in everything?
NAFME All Nationals is certainly a high calibre orchestra, but yes, certainly not all the “best of the best” apply. There are many good players who are not in their school orchestra and therefore not eligible, or did not do their all state festival. Plus, if you look closely not all states participate in the orchestra. Lastly, they make you pay for the plane and some other things yourself, which is also a downside. Something like National Youth Orchestra is much more prestigious and its free, so that’s where even stronger applicants apply. (Again, NOT saying NAFME doesn’t have good players, its just that the “all national” status doesn’t really mean its like all the best players in the nation, its just basically the best players who made it to the state level of their state organization).
Other than that tho, Its a great orchestra and a great honor (and really nice for your college app too 
)
And let me reiterate, its a great experience, and also many of the same people choose to do NAFME All-Easterns as well. If you can go and don’t mind the cost, I would probably go.
From my area, which has really really strong players and programs, basically everyone who applied last year from my youth orchestra got in. I would definitely give it a shot, and from that stat it seems like its not too hard to get in as long as you are pretty decent. If you get concertmaster of your state festival, I’d say definitely give it a go because chances are you probably would get in.
I’m planning to audition this year as well; Me and most of my friends who made our all state are all planning to apply. Since our state didn’t really have a state audition piece, we are allowed to use 2 minutes of any solo rep. And we are allowed up to 2 minutes additional (*which is optional) recording. I’m doing a high-level concerto (auditioning for Violin) and using 2 minutes of that from a performance I will do a week before the deadline, and the 2 additional minutes will be a cadenza from the same concerto.
@fcm951 I submitted my application for this before the deadline, but do the ensemble director recommendations also need to be submitted before the deadline?
It is always wise to treat entrance into any kind of orchestra program and the like as what it is, a valuable performing experience as well as the chance to get to be with other high caliber players. So much of the whole process is subjective, for one thing, so you could be CM of a group like NYYS or the Seattle Youth Symphony, to name a few, and not get into any of the top conservatories, for the reasons others have stated (among other things, top seats in those orchestras may not go to the best technical players, not to mention politics plays a role in some of them). A friend of my son’s, who was one of the few kids at Juilliard pre college who did his school orchestra, went for all state orchestra because his director asked him to, he got in, but was not placed well (in that particular orchestra, they seated by ability, which is kind of stupid but is the way many school orchestras work, real ones often put strong players in the back of sections fo balance things out), the same kid went to Curtis on violin…so go figure.
Like I always tell my violinist son, when it comes to auditioning, all you can do is to prepare yourself well and don’t worry about the results. Except for the NYO-USA, other “national” youth orchestras are not that difficult to get in simply because not all top players audition for them. In fact, my son, who was CM at both the All State and one such national orchestra, was quite disappointed by the quality of musicianship at the national. He felt that the quality fell below the All State. Nevertheless, he cherished the experience and felt it was worth it for two main reasons: 1) working closely with the conductor/music director, and 2) friendships he quickly developed with fellow musicians that will last for years.
As for NYO-USA, it’s NOT really based on all skills. They pick the musicians based on geographical diversity as well as racial diversity to ensure that it looks “USA.” In this regard, it works remarkably similar to top elite college admissions process, i.e., you may be truly one of the best instrumentalists but may not get in depending on where you’re geographically from and what racial category you’re in, just as for those students with the perfect 2400 SAT I, 800’s in three SAT II’s and 4.0 uw GPA are often rejected from the top elite colleges. You’d think that it should be different for music, but NYO-USA is the most “political” music orchestra there is.
Haha so this thread got revived again. For reference, I got in last year and was 4th at 1st violin (seating was weird to say the least), and I’m part of this year’s NYO-USA; I’m going to Stanford next year. I genuinely think my city’s youth orchestra is about as good as All-Nationals, perhaps due to All-Nats short practice time or conductor chemistry between the section leaders. I can’t say much about the politics of competitions or auditions given the fact that I’ll be biased, but I’ve personally taken all my auditions carefully, and done well in most cases. But I’d argue against sweeping accusations against any orchestra as “political” or not, as any single person’s evidence for or against such claims are usually based on personal experiences and hearsay.
All orchestras are political, in a broad sense of the word.
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NYO-USA players may not necessarily be at an elite level or even at the level of some of the youth orchestras out there, for the reason that they exclude many of the best players (by design), it is an orchestra designed to give kids a chance to play who love music but aren’t majoring in it. Kids before college can get into it, and some kids from the top prep programs do go in there, but many don’t, because the orchestra programs at their prep programs are very high level. A youth orchestra like the New York Youth Symphony can have kids at top music schools in there, so they may be technically better. The whole point of NYO-USA was to give a broader range of kids the opportunity to play, and they are looking for diversity both geographical and in terms of underrepresented groups, like certain minority groups who don’t often get the chance at things like this. I agree with GH, all orchestras are political because they are a collection of people in human society and politics is part of that, and it isn’t necessarily negative. Sometimes decisions are made, like canning a conductor, because of friction with the players, concertmasters are not just hired because they are the best violinist around, but because they have diplomatic skills, musicians are hired based on an audition but they also stay in the orchestra only if they fit into the culture and the system, and so forth. There was one youth orchestra I know of where a kid was seated as assistant CM because his family gave the group like 100k, wasn’t very popular with members of the orchestra or the conductor, but crap like that happens.
@theultimatenerd:
I don’t know specifically how nyo-usa works with their seating, but most high level orchestras don’t use the school orchestra method where the seat you are in indicates how good you are, at conservatory level and high level youth orchestras and professional orchestras that doesn’t apply. Some orchestras use rotating seats, for example, and conductors will routinely put strong players at the back of a section to balance the sound out, and second violins are not worse players than firsts (principals on any instrument do tend to be the best player, or one of the best). So what you consider weird seating is likely the conductor trying to achieve balance, rather than trying to indicate “oh, Johnny is 2nd chair 2nd stand while Billy is 5th stand 1st chair, Johnny must be better”…All state programs can do that kind of things, but most higher level orchestras don’t do that.
@musicprnt - what do you mean by:
“it is an orchestra designed to give kids a chance to play who love music but aren’t majoring in it”. ?
@clarinetdad16:
NYO-USA excludes kids who are majoring in music performance from applying. They will allow a student who has been accepted in music performance but hasn’t started yet to be in it. They would allow someone studying voice, or someone studying composition or music theory or history, though, and kids who are taking lessons through the school and/or doing orchestra and such, are eligible as well. When they created NYO-USA, they specifically said they wanted it to be different, they didn’t want the usual music performance students in it. From their website:
“If you are enrolled full-time in a college-level conservatory or music department with instrumental performance as your major (or intended field of study), you are not eligible to join NYO-USA. There are no other educational or performance requirements for NYO-USA eligibility.”
Wouldn’t that only impact (exclude) the oldest applicants?
You must be between the ages of 16 and 19 during the summer of your participation. For 2017, this means your birthdate must be between July 1, 1997, and June 30, 2001, without exception. Please note that if you are under 18 at the time you apply, the consent of your parent or guardian is required.
Note: you are not considered a full-time music student if you are enrolled in a performing arts high school, regardless of your course of study
Depends, lot of kids go to college at 17 and 18, for example. More importantly, if they had let conservatory kids in, it likely would crowd out the pre college kids, and you would end up with mostly 18 and 19 year olds (or the 17 year olds who went to college early), which I suspect was part of the reason they didn’t want conservatory kids applying, the level they likely would audition at (given how hard it is to get into the competitive music schools), means they likely would take a lot of the slots. And given that this was given a lot of publicity (being associated with Carnegie Hall and the kind of playing they would be doing, touring, going overseas, etc), it is likely that high level conservatory students would do this, if anything for the prestige they assume it has.
@musicprnt I just scanned through the 2016 roster for NYO USA and for woodwinds, brass and percussion there were zero college students. Many at performing arts schools (especially Interlochen) and youth orchestras.
Didn’t have time to go through all the strings…
I am glad to hear that, my point was that if they allowed conservatory students in there they likely would have a lot of them taking the spots, that’s all. They had a deliberate reason for excluding college music majors, it was to give younger kids and college kids who aren’t majoring in music a chance. Plus limiting the top age to 19 (many major youth orchestras top out at 22) also, as you point out, limits college participation as a whole
@ClarinetDad16 - At least on oboe, some of the very top high school kids consider NYO their top choice for summer.
I don’t imagine a lot of non-music-major college freshman practice nearly enough to be competitive against those kids.
If the original intent of the program was to serve as a leveling agent, perhaps that has been lost, because (from the Carnegie Hall website):
“This summer, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute launches NYO2, a two-week, intensive summer training program for outstanding young American instrumentalists ages 14–17. NYO2 has a particular focus on attracting talented students from groups underserved by and underrepresented in the classical orchestral field. […] NYO2 aims to expand the pool of young musicians across the country equipped with the tools to succeed at the highest level, particularly those who will bring greater diversity to classical orchestral music and/or those who have not had access to highly selective training opportunities through major youth orchestra programs, summer festivals and camps, or similar experiences outside of their local community.”
I wonder if they lacked applicants who fit their stated goals. Among the NYO2 wind players, my daughter knows two of the kids and two others live close enough to us that we’re familiar with the schools they attend and the youth orchestra they play in. Not one of these kids is easily described as “underserved” or in any way lacking in access to opportunities.
Much of the perceived prestige of summer programs seems to have at least as much to do with marketing as with the actual program quality.
@noviceatoller:
From what I know of the NYO, they attract a lot of top music students who as you say are the beneficiary of private teachers, top prep programs and the like, and in the end I suspect they will end up with the same lack of diversity that exists in the classical music world. If I had to hazard a guess, part of the problem is that kids they claim to want to reach out to, figure they don’t stand a chance against the kids with the top private teachers, who go to places like Juilliard and CIM and MSM and other of the big prep programs and so forth. It is great and fine to talk about diversity, but the reality is they likely are choosing kids based on their playing ability, but more importantly, it is likely that those auditioning (just based on my experiences) are not very diverse. Depending on the area, getting to that high level requires resources, financial and access, that a lot of kids don’t have, it is why groups like Sphinx exist, they actively seek out kids to help and mentor them, get them teachers, instruments, etc. Put it this way, most of the kids getting into the top conservatories have the kind of resources (financial, or a parent who knows how to navigate scholarships and such to music programs before college, and parental support to be able to shepherd them to lessons and so forth, or live in a place like NYC where the kids can do a lot on their own. In many ways classical music is very elitist, it is not the place of horatio alger stories, and has gotten only more and more tough as time has gone on.