This might be too specific, so let me know.
D, double bass, undergrad, is filling out the Curtis application. There’s a text box for the repertoire, no word limit as far as I can tell.
As a bassist, her repertoire consists of limited solo and chamber works (10 total?) and more than 80 orchestral works that she’s performed in various ensembles.
My question: what goes in the box? Just cut and paste in her entire repertoire or summarize it?
Or should we just contact the school?
I’ll PM you.
I wouldn’t overthink this too much…if I remember correctly, there are a lot of slightly strange questions on the Curtis application, and none of them really mattered at all. They really only care how you play! Having said that, their admission team is super nice and helpful and I wouldn’t hesitate having your child reach out to them with any questions.
For rep, we included the past few years of solo repertoire only, but my son is a violinist and has a ton of rep, so that was more than enough. For a bass player, probably including chamber is valuable to show breadth, but that might be a question to ask a bass player or teacher. I would not include orchestral repertoire unless there was a big bass solo in it.
Thank you! Yes… It’s so easy to overthink and there are some odd questions on the application (e.g. “do you have an instrument people consider to be professional grade?”) ???
I guess for the organists and percussionists? But still seems like an odd question. The answer would seem obvious.
In our experience, as @TooManyViolinists says, Curtis really cares how you play. And to an extent how you present yourself.
Actually, @anotheroboemom, for string players it isn’t an obvious question. The violin my son owns is about a $10,000 instrument, which may seem a lot but even the nicest instrument at that price point will never be a soloist level instrument. He currently has a lender violin from a program here that is worth quite a bit more than that, but he will have to give it back eventually. But even that isn’t meeting his needs according to his teacher. Many of the string players at Curtis have instrument lends from all sorts of programs (including Curtis itself), some even in the million dollar range. It’s something the admissions office likes to take into consideration when you audition because they really don’t want to penalize a great player who has a crappy instrument.
Thanks for clarifying. Just wondering then, so your violinist would have answered that they did not own a professional level instrument?
I cant remember which summer program asked this question. I thought it had more to do with access and ability to pay for a professional instrument. I would assumes that anyone who applied to Curtis deserves a professional level instrument, but many cannot afford one.
Last year is a bit of a blur and I know we went back and forth on how to answer that question. I can’t remember which box my son ended up ticking, but he clarified it somewhere else on the application, stating that he had use of a professional instrument on loan.
Also, the how you present yourself thing is more important at Curtis than at a lot of places. We know a couple amazing players who were divas with an attitude that got turned down by Curtis because no one wanted to deal with them.
Absolutely agree. Being able to show that you will be a positive influence in your studio and member of the Curtis community is very important.
One app DD24 has sent in asked her to list each instrument including mouthpieces etc; I think this was to even things out in pre screens but I guess it could also be about access to ‘good’ instruments
Yep… That’s how we finally interpreted it, equal access to instruments. Crazy though!
Wow. S24 only had one asking the brand of instrument.