The audition is as relaxed as such an event can be!
Auditions take place in front of our Music Director, our accompanist and our Voice Coach, all of whom will be keen to put you at your ease. If it would make you more comfortable you may have a friend to “sit in” on your audition.
You will be asked to sing a piece of your own choice – this can be anything you like, up to about 3 minutes long. It should be accompanied, and our Accompanist will play the piano for you, so you need to provide the music. It doesn’t need to be a song with accompaniment – it could be one of the voice parts of an unaccompanied choral piece, in which case our accompanist will play the other three parts on the piano. We find that unaccompanied singing is not suitable for auditions.
After singing the piece of your choice, our Vocal Coach will take you through some exercises to give us an idea of how your voice is now, and its potential for the future. This will include singing a few scales to determine the range of your voice. You can sing these to any vowel sound that you like.
There is no sight-reading test, though we do expect you to have some music-reading ability. We’ll talk to you about that in context of your previous musical experiences, including any choirs or ensembles you may have participated in. Anything relevant will be useful, whether from school, singing in a choir at church or playing an instrument – whatever you’ve been up to musically we will be keen to hear about it! We’ll also give you some simple aural tests to see how you pick things up by ear.
You will be given the outcome of your audition within 48 hours. If you don’t pass, the reasons will be explained to you, along with suggestions about what could be improved so that a future audition may be more successful.
All Chorus members are re-auditioned every three years as a matter of course, but if you are less musically experienced or aren’t used to working on the style of music we often sing, we will ask to hear you again after you’ve sung with us for a year, when we’ll talk to you about pieces we’ve worked on and ask you to sing some extracts from them. We occasionally run music technique classes, and we may recommend that you have a few one-to-one sessions with our Vocal Coach.
We understand that you may feel nervous about the audition, but remember that we are actively seeking new members, so are not wanting to catch people out or fail them. An audition is the normal way for a Music Director to assess your voice and to see if our Chorus is right for you. We try to make the audition fairly short and as relaxed as possible. At the end of the day, enthusiasm, a commitment to attend all or most of our rehearsals and to work on the music at home are as important as any sight-reading ability you may be fortunate to have – and we don’t test your sight-singing, as we know it can be a daunting hurdle even for those with great skill in that area.
By passing an audition, the choir’s very high standards are maintained and you will hopefully enjoy singing with an excellent chorus!
