Vermont All State Music Festival | Offering Musicians from Vermont's High Schools the Opportunity to Perform

VOCAL ADJUDICATION PROCESS

AUDITION TIMES
Vocal quartet audition time slots are 8 minutes in length with the sight-singing aspect of the audition conducted in a separate room by a separate adjudicator. The sight-singing will not be scheduled, but will operate on a first-come, first-serve basis. An opportunity to sight-sing will be made available for every vocalist who performed in a vocal quartet audition up until the end of the audition day.

Schools will receive enough quartet audition time slots to match the quartet voice with the largest number of applying students (i.e.: 15 sopranos equals 15 quartet audition time slots).Should a student neglect to complete the sight-singing portion of their audition after performing the vocal quartet and solo portion, their audition will be disqualified.

ADJUDICATION
Students who audition under the Vocal Audition format are applying for acceptance to the Festival Chorus. A separate audition is required to be considered for acceptance into other groups.

Students will be auditioned by a quartet of adjudicators, one for each voice part. Each adjudicator will evaluate a separate voice part.

The sight-singing aspect of the audition will be heard in a separate room by a separate adjudicator on a first-come, first-served basis. There will be a vocal sight-singing room assigned to each voice part, although some voice parts may share a sight-singing room while other voice parts may have two sight-singing rooms assigned to it.A student may sing in several quartets but only if required to do so by a limited number of students on their voice part available from their school. They will only be rated on their first appearance before an adjudicator.

Students who sing in several quartets (as noted above) will only perform the sight-singing once.

All quartets from the same school will be judged by the same quartet of adjudicators unless scheduling prohibits it. Changes in the membership of each adjudicator quartet will only be made by the Vocal Adjudicator Coordinator with the approval of the Festival Director.Although it is discouraged, women may audition as tenors.Students may audition on only one voice part.Students who audition on more than one part will not be considered for the Festival regardless of how high either of their auditions were rated.

INCOMPLETE QUARTETS
If a school has an incomplete quartet, they will have the option to do one of the following:
• have the appropriate adjudicator(s) sing the missing part(s).
• have another student from their school or another school sing the missing part(s).

This student(s) must have already auditioned or is/are not being considered for the Festival. The student(s) that help fill out quartets will not be rated while auditioning in that capacity. A school music teacher or any other adult may not sing in an auditioning quartet.

AUDITION REQUIREMENTS
To complete their audition, students must:

Sing their part in the appropriate audition piece in an a cappella quartet before the quartet adjudicators either using original copies of the piece or from memory (see AUDITION SELECTIONS for the proper piece).

Sing their part on a section of the same piece as an a cappella solo before the appropriate voice adjudicator either using original copies of the piece or from memory.

Sight-sing, using any system / syllable the student wishes, a short melody.

After being given a rhythmic exercise, chant it on a neutral syllable such as "la, la" or "doo, doo" (rather than clapping the exercise).

Sing, in solfege, a full eight note major scale ascending and descending and then sing the appropriate arpeggio. The arpeggio solfege will be Do - Mi - So - Do - So - Mi - Do - So (below tonice) - Do

The students may bring a pitch pipe or other tone generator to the audition to establish each part's beginning pitch. The appropriate adjudicator may be asked to sing a specific part's starting pitch.

SELECTION TONALITY
The vocal audition piece may be sung in the original key, or up or down a half or a whole step (i.e.: the piece may be sung in F, F# (Gb), G, G# (Ab) or A when G is the written key.)

NO PHOTOCOPIES OF THE AUDITION SELECTION WILL BE ALLOWED IN THE AUDITION ROOM.