WHAT IS THE ALL-STATE PROCESS, AND WHY SHOULD I AUDITION?
The All-State Choir process is a highly competitive audition process that encourages independent musicianship. The music for auditions is selected by the TMEA Vocal Vice-President and the All-State Conductors who come from all over the country to conduct our prestigious ensembles. They are usually college conductors. There are 4 rounds of auditions, but are in two sections.
The first round of auditions is called District Auditions in late September. 4 pieces of music are auditioned, and they take about 50 women on each voice part and about 25 men on each voice part. The second round of auditions is called Region Auditions in late October. There are another 4 pieces to be auditioned. The women are either placed in the Region Mixed Choir, if they are the one of the top 16 singers in their room, or the Region Treble Choir. They take the top 16 men to make the Region Mixed Choir. (The auditions are not equal because we lack the number of men as a region to put together a competitive Region Men’s Choir). The Region Choirs perform on the Region Clinic and Concert. During the first half of November, they miss one day of school and then spend all day on the following Saturday preparing for an amazing concert that evening.
If your student places in the top 16 in their voice part and makes the Region Mixed Choir, they become Pre-Area candidates. Pre-Area is the third round of auditions and happens the first Saturday of December. No new music is added, but the audition adds a sight reading component for additional challenge.
If your student then makes the top 5 or 6 in their Pre-Area Audition, they go on to become Area Candidates. The Area Audition combines several regions together to make it 15 competitors, but again, only the top 5 or so are chosen. If your student passes the Area audition, he or she become a part of the All-State Choir, and performs at the Texas Music Educators Association Conference in February. The district pays for travel and hotel to San Antonio, and their absences are excused for the 4 day conference.
The goal to requiring the students in Chorale to audition is not to have every student make All-State. The goal is to have each member of Chorale learn high level music on their own and work on their own musicianship, which will in turn make the whole group stronger. The audition format is singing cuts, or parts, of each of the pieces and focuses on extreme musicality and healthy vocal technique. The student is only known by a randomly assigned badge number, and sings behind a curtain, so it is double blind. It is a highly competitive process, but encourages students to work independently and at a very high level. Even if audition nerves get the best of your student, the true success is having a student develop the skills to self-assess and know their own voice better. It can be a transformative process.
TMEA All-State Vocal Repertoire
All amendments, corrections and errata will become official only when it is published here.
Please see the google drive for the practice tracks.