Virtual vs. In-Person Auditions

As audition acceptances roll in I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking about this. Should we prefer in-person or virtual auditions? Obviously in-person auditions are better for intimacy and showing your best self, but they also come with a huge time and money cost (esp. for schools that are far away). There’s also the problem of Omicron, and whether it’s going to get any better or worse (I’m from NYC and go to school in the heart of the outbreak so I’ve been seeing some pretty tough stuff—nothing too bad like last year March/April but lines for every testing site I see go around the block). Don’t know about any others but University of Toronto has cancelled all in-person auditions and is requesting recorded auditions from everyone now. Curious what y’all think.

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I think that when the holidays are over, most if not all schools will decide to go to live virtual auditions based on Covid numbers and keeping outsiders off of their campuses so that current students can return to in person classes safely.

Travel is not safe right now and since auditions last year were virtual, they can pivot pretty easily. Of course, in person auditions are ideal, but it’s just not safe right now.

We’ll know soon enough!

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I’m curious to see how things shake out as well. My S is not traveling for any of his out of state auditions, he is sending in video links. Kinda glad we made that choice a while ago given the risks of travel right now. The professor at one of the schools he is applying to said there would be absolutely no preference given based on audition type. I know that’s not the case everywhere, but…

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Question @murray93 – are the videos your son is submitting new videos, or are they the same as the videos from prescreens? Or are these programs that didn’t require prescreens?

Either pre-screens were not required at all or were not for his instrument. If they were, though, I would absolutely use the same videos. He is really running out of steam on this! GL

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My D got acceptances off video submissions a few years ago. She simply couldn’t afford the time and money for a couple of grad school auditions. She was told that they would consider live or video submissions the same way.

Just FYI - for the first time in the “professional” world, equity issues are finally being considered. For college auditions, there always seemed to be an understanding that not everyone could afford to travel…and they were open to talent no matter how it was presented to them.

In the professional world (at least for opera), you had to travel to auditions or you would get no chance. Of course, you need to travel when you are making little income. That’s why for opera, it has been considered a rich or upper middle class artisitic endeavor only. There are finally some changes to that due to covid and equity issues. My D mainly submits video auditions now. She has stepped away from the YAP track due to the high costs associated with it (and she can get regional work w/o those costs). Still the tippy top opera companies may not change a lot…not sure as my D is not in that world.

IMHO, spending time learning how to do great video/virtual auditions is well worth anyone’s time. Still it’s a bummer not to visit campuses…so I do understand that…good luck with either method and I’ll hope you can travel in the Spring to your top choice(s).

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Right now I’m tentatively planning a road trip to IU for my son’s scheduled in-person audition. We haven’t visited most of the schools he’s applied to, and would love the opportunity to do that and get to know these places in person even though it’s a huge cost for us to do the trip. That said, only booking hotel/airbnb places that I can cancel last minute without penalty!

I agree with Baribass that we’ll likely hear more next week or so.

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Well, looks like everything I applied to is virtual now… thanks omicron I guess