My daughter is a high school junior, beginning the application process for college. She will be a vocal performance major, and can be characterized as a young soubrette (perhaps heading toward lyric soprano --who knows at 17?). She studies in the studio of a well regarded former opera singer, and sings predominantly art songs in Italian and English (a few French and German pieces too). He is very protective of her voice, and will help her choose pieces for auditions in the fall. However, we have noticed that many of the high school aged kids in competitions and the “by audition master classes” she has attended are already singing Mozart arias and (IMHO) much more complicated material. Will she be at a disadvantage in the application process by doing art songs as suggested by her mentor?
She should sing art songs. Her teacher should be protective of her voice. He obviously knows what he is doing. When a too young singer comes in with inappropriate material, you can almost hear the eyes roll in the audition room.
I second musicamusica. Art songs are perfect. I auditioned with a German and Italian art song plus a lighter aria suited for beginners.
The key is to look at the audition requirements for different schools she is interested in. Do they require certain languages, and if so what languages. Are there certain books the songs must be from? How many songs are required? Doing these things will allow you to put together a repertoire for any of the schools being applied to. We had four songs for my D to pick from depending on the school. Two English, 1 French, and one Italian.
Her teacher should be guiding this decision, not strangers. If the current teacher is unable or unwilling, find a different teacher.
Lorelei2702: I did say her teacher will choose songs with her. However, we have zero experience with the music major application process, and are relying solely on this voice instructor for guidance (public schools know zip about majoring in music, so school counselors are useless). I merely wanted additional opinions on whether art songs were acceptable, and I thank those of you who weighed in above!
Art songs are fine. Just be sure she has one in English, Italian and either German or French and in contrasting styles. You will see (hear) many singers trying to sound impressive and sing way beyond their ability. Her teacher sounds wise.
I apologize for missing the gist of your inquiry. Generally speaking, the best auditions are of pieces that show young singer at their best and which have a dramatic relevance to the performer, not singing a piece that challenges them for range and extreme dynamics. The advantage of Italian songs has more to do with the relative simplicity of the language, i.e. fewer vowels and consonants. Familiarity with any other language, with grammatical structure and resultant phrasing, is best if foreign language art songs are chosen. Of course, some of the music schools may request an aria, but early Italian, Handel opera and oratorio arias, any oratorio or cantata arias fulfill that requirement. Her teacher is the best judge of what will be appropriate, assuming the teacher is a trained voice teacher, not solely a choral director (in some music education programs, as few as five semesters of voice study is all that is required.). Good luck to your daughter.
Here is an example of what I am talking about as far as schools and their requirements. This is what is required by the University of Georgia Hogdson School of Music for UG voice auditions:
Present two memorized selections to include:
One song or aria from Italian repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Required anthologies are:
24 Italian Songs and Arias of the 17th and 18th Centuries (Hal Leonard Publishing)
26 Italian Songs and Arias (Alfred Music Publishing)
30 Italian Songs and Arias of the 17th and 18th Centuries (Edition Peters)
One art song in English by an American or British composer
Required anthologies are:
The First Book of Solos Series (Hal Leonard Publishing)
Easy Songs for Beginning Singers (Hal Leonard Publishing)
Pathways of Song (Alfred Music Publishing)
Spirituals of Harry T. Burleigh (Alfred Music Publishing)
Singer’s Library of Song (Alfred Music Publishing)
Standard Vocal Literature (Hal Leonard Publishing)
So if you apply to a school that requires an English and Foreign Language song AND UGA, by using the UGA requirements as the baseline, you satisfy both schools.
Then you have to deal with schools that want more than two songs. For example, Florida State requires FOUR songs as follows:
FOUR MEMORIZED SELECTIONS. These songs should represent contrasting styles chosen from early Italian, 19th and 20th century art songs, and folk songs. All selections may be sung in English.
So adding this to the scenario, you would have the songs required by UGA in the repertoire and then add two more to satisfy the requirements of FSU.
If Indiana is on the list, you MUST sing “Star vicino” by Salvatore Rosa and two other pieces.
and so on, and so on…
Yep @CollegeDadofTwo Juniors need to look ahead at the schools they are interested in and plan ahead. We did. D had a song in English, Italian, German and French prepared and ready for auditions,
I think she’s set, then. She has plenty of Italian and English art songs to chose from. Working in earnest on polishing a French and German. Spurred by @CollegeDadofTwo, we looked at the schools she is considering for audition requirements. The only surprise was Michigan requiring a piano screen for piano lab placement if you get through to on campus auditions. She can play, but it was good to know! Also surprised that almost all on campus auditions (after prescreen) are in Jan and Feb. If this winter was any predictor of next, they will not great months for reliable travel!
@songbirdmama - yes January and February weather can complicate things, but more importantly schedule conflicts can get in the way too when schools have in person auditions the same days. What we did was make a matrix that showed what schools were on what days, and which ones would accept a video audition. There were days where there were no other date options, so we had to decide which ones we absolutely wanted to be at if we got by pre-screen, and which ones we would risk a video audition. My D did get into 3 of the 4 schools she did a video audition for, but only one was for the program/level she wanted. So it is a risk.
The other thing that kind of messes with you is that you do a schedule based on the assumption you will get by all the pre-screens. Then when you do not get through a pre-screen, you all of the sudden have an empty weekend you could have used to space things out.
And here is a tip for your travel. Ask the University if the local hotels offer a discount for university visitors. A lot of school (but not all) have this available and it can save you enough to cover your meals for the visits.
@songbirdmama My D auditioned at University of Michigan there is not a piano screen for vocal performance.
@oscar63 The keyboard screen is for vocal performance plus teacher certification (curriculum “B”) (which is kind of a neat possibility)