At 3:36 AM -0400 7/23/05, Neal Schermerhorn wrote:
It's not so bad, though. Plenty of kids make All-State in this country. It's an honor, but I'd surely put more weight on an admission audition than a claim that one sang alto with 100 others in All-State when picking college freshman.
Hi, Neal. It isn't so much that one SANG in All-State as it is that one was SELECTED for All-State, if I can draw such a narrow distinction. The selection is recognition of special talent or accomplishment, unless it's based on "let's be sure to have all geographical areas represented."
The year I ran the vocal part of the auditions for Disney's All-American College Singers, the instructions we were given were kind of interesting. Yes, they wanted the casts at both parks to "look like America" and be diverse, and they wanted good geographical representation, but they also wanted the best, most talented, most well-prepared kids they could get! Fortunately, after auditioning 1,280 people, we were able to pick casts of 14 for each park that satisfied all criteria!
I don't know about other states when it comes to All-State, but Virginia does something additional. They rank the singers in each voice category, AND they tell the singers how they ranked. (Or else the teachers leak the information; at any rate we knew how our son scored.) In 1979 our choir director and our voice teachers were salivating because the top-rated bass in the state was coming here, but his head was screwed on straight and he chose to audition for my highly-regarded show ensemble rather than their mediocre choirs. That's where his heart was, and he turned into a first-rate entertainer, give or take his dance skills.
And as a junior our older son was ranked first in the state as a 1st tenor, while a friend of his in the same madrigal ensemble was ranked 2nd. Their senior year their rankings were reversed. That was one heckofa tenor section!! Ian did sing 1st tenor through high school, taking advantage of his countertenor range to keep his voice from straining, but sang countertenor in early music contexts as early as middle school. Thus he avoided the problems--and the notoriety--that Mike Rawls has encountered.
If someone's a truly talented musician, they will be noticed, All-State or no. The cream will rise to the top.
Yes, that's generally true, and of course you're exactly right that the entrance audition is critical, but it's also true that in order to be noticed AND RECRUITED it's helpful to be in a place where people are already looking for talent. In that sense, it's like athletics. High school coaches send game tapes to college coaches, who send assistant coaches to watch the actual games, and who decide who to recruit personally only after seeing the kids play. If you don't play, you don't get noticed. (And yes, they've got scholarship budgets that music departments can only dream of, but the flip side is that they often end up recruiting prima donnas--actually that should be primo uomos!) Seeing credits like All-County or All-District choir, orchestra or band is mildly interesting, but the standards are higher for All-State and Honor Choir (the two are separate in Virginia, and Honor Choir is, if I recall correctly, by invitation), so you look much more carefully at those kids. Ultimately all any credits can do is signal that someone who's auditioning is worthy of paying attention to, but after sitting through a day of auditions that little extra is definitely important.
John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
