Talent Show

• Attending College as a Music Major

  • Apply to the school – Fall semester of your senior year, Dec 1 deadline*

  • Apply to the College of Music (School of Music/Music Dept/etc)

    • Audition – December/January

      • More prestigious programs will have screening auditions in the fall, final auditions in the spring

    • Online application

    • Theory/Aural Perception Placement Exams – January 31

• Attending College as a Non-Music Major, Music Minor

  • Apply to the school – December 1

  • For Performance Minors, auditions are usually required – January 31

• Attending College as a Non-Music Major, Participating in Performing Groups

  • Apply to the school

  • Enroll in the “Community” or “University” ensembles

• Community Colleges

  • Later application and audition dates, up until the start of classes

*Deadlines vary, but this is a reasonably typical timeline

All colleges and universities offer merit-based scholarships for musicians who decide to major in music. Most schools will also offer partial scholarships for students who minor in music and some will even offer partial scholarships just for students who are participating in performance ensembles.

The more prestigious a school, the more competitive their application process and their scholarship awards. Top-ranked private schools like BYU, Notre Dame, Stanford, or Harvard are much more difficult schools from which to receive scholarships. Even highly-ranked state schools can be ultra-competitive when it comes to scholarship money, especially if they have large applicant pools (like ASU or UofA, who both field approximately 25-30,000 applications each year).

Smaller schools often have the same amount of scholarship money to go around, but far fewer students competing for it, and often the talent in the application pool is shallower. Students who might not get admitted to Harvard’s music program at all could receive a full ride to a smaller school. A smaller, less prestigious school can also often offer more one-on-one attention and a more welcoming, less competitive environment for incoming freshmen.

 VIOLA (Auditions in January and February for fall Admission)

Piano accompaniment is not required.
 

Non-Performance Majors (composition, music education, theory, music therapy, Bachelor of Arts)

• Scales and Arpeggios: All major and minor three octave scales and arpeggios.

• Two works contrasting in style and tempo.

Performance Majors

• Scales and Arpeggios: All major and minor three octave scales and arpeggios.

• J.S. Bach: One movement from any of the unaccompanied cello suites.

• A movement or piece from the standard viola repertoire comparable to:

  • Bloch: Suite Hebraique

  • Handel: Casadesus B Minor Concerto

  • Hummel: Fantasie

  • Stamitz: Concerto

  • Vaughan Williams: Suite

  • Weber: Andante and Hungarian Rondo

VIOLIN (Auditions in January and February for fall Admission)

Piano accompaniment is not required.

Non-Performance Majors (composition, music education, theory, music therapy, Bachelor of Arts)

• Scales and Arpeggios: All major and minor three octave scales and arpeggios.

• Two works contrasting in style and tempo.

Performance Majors

• Scales and Arpeggios: All major and minor three octave scales and arpeggios.

• An outer movement of a standard concerto.

• J.S. Bach: One movement from any of the unaccompanied violin partitas or sonatas.

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