Re: Differences in All-State Tryouts by Stat


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Posted by Connecticut on October 03, 2003 at 10:00:50:

In Reply to: Differences in All-State Tryouts by Stat posted by Tuba Dad on October 02, 2003 at 17:05:50:

Connecticut has both regionals and all state.

It used to be that there was one audition at each region, from which players were selected for both the regional festival and all-state festival, all players auditioning on the all-state piece, with the very top players in each region being selected for all state. Typically, players had to play scales, a prepared piece, and sight read.

This resulted in some of the top players skipping the regional festival in favor of all-state, given limited interest in spending an extra weekend at a festival (especially since many of the top kids were in New York city prep programs (e.g. Julliard, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes) or CT youth orchestras (Norwalk, New Haven, Bridgeport, etc).

Another problem with this system was that the piece, designed to separate the wheat from the chaff at all state level, was simply beyond many of the players at the regional level.
(I don't remember any of the tuba pieces other than the not-so-difficult Bell "Air and Bouree", but most were at a higher level than that. Trumpet pieces, for example, were fast movements concertos and sonatas such as Haydn, Hummel, Artunian, Hindemuth)

Last year, CT moved to a new system where the regional tryouts used a different, easier piece. In order to be eligable to audition for all state, one has to be one of the top scorers on the regional piece and participate in the regional festival. Then one auditions for all state on another piece, of the same level of difficulty as the old all state pieces.

On tuba, this year, CT is using the King/Leduc edition of Bordogni, Etude 4 for region and Haddad's Suite for Tuba (movements 1 & 2) for all state. Trumpet uses Balay's Andante and Allegro for regions, and the first and second movements of the Hummel Concerto in Eb (played on Bb trumpet).



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