Auditioning Singers IV: Group Auditions/Recalls

For many of us with advanced choirs, a group recall audition by section is an important part of the selection process. It's a possible next step after the individual auditions, which can serve several purposes:

• a chance to compare voices that you may have heard over several days (we just heard around 200 singers in our auditions)
• trying out different combinations of voices to see which voices work together best in a section
• to check musicianship and ability to follow rehearsal suggestions in a different way
• to set placement within the section

It takes time to do this, but it can be quite valuable.

 

It's challenging to remember specifics of voices (when you don't know them) across several days--some conductors video-tape singers so they can go back. But even with that, the direct comparison of voices is far more accurate. Size of voice, color, and other attributes are then heard in context.

 

I typically have called back 4-5 more singers than I will take in a section--if I'll take 12 sopranos, for example, I might recall 16-17 singers. I've done either a familiar song ('My Country 'tis of thee') or some repertoire from the upcoming year. My Country 'tis of thee is done in Bb (lower voices) and F (higher voices), with the key of G for first sopranos and tenors, which tells me a lot. I've also used music that's new to the singers, where I want to hear how quickly they may pick up ideas for phrasing or sound that I may suggest.

 

Joshua Bronfman wrote an interesting post on how preconceptions may affect our perceptions of the singers we hear and asked if any of us did blind auditions (that's the norm in the professional orchestral world). I did exactly that for about 8 years at PLU. I wrote about it in an earlier blog:

 

With my PLU choirs I always had a group audition, by section, after the individual auditions. This allowed me to find a bit more about musicianship, how quickly the singer could apply musical ideas, and to see how voices might work together.

 

If, for example, I were considering 16 sopranos for 12 spots available in the Choir of the West, I’d have an hour to work with them. In the last ten years or so of these auditions I did them “blind.” When the singers came in they’d pick a number (1 through 16) out of a box (they’d write their names on the piece of paper and hand it back at the end, so I’d have my “key” to who I was listening to). After introducing the process, I’d turn my back to the singers and call out numbers for particular singers. Of course, I could identify some singers’ voices right away, but I didn’t focus on guessing—simply on listening to the voice. I think new singers liked this “anonymity,” and later I was sometimes genuinely surprised by the results as I ranked the singers.

 

I’d usually begin with a vocal exercise, and hear all singers one after another. Then we’d work on a passage from a work I’d chosen (usually something from upcoming repertoire). This helped me find out how quick singers were in learning something new and how musically they might sing. I’d then begin to combine different voices to see how they worked together.

 

I found this a valuable part of my audition process.

 

Sorting out how voices work together can be done in a variety of ways. If you have a choir with a large number of returning members, this part of the audition can put new singers amongst returning ones, which allows you the possibility of "plugging in" the new singers and hearing how they fit. My colleague, Jerry McCoy, uses his recall in this way.

 

My former colleague at PLU, Richard Nance, uses his group recall for placement in the choir, but by arranging the voices from bright to dark color, which then will help him determine the arrangement of singers.

 

If you haven't done such a group recall, give it a try!

Auditioning Singers III - Musicianship/Ear

Another thing to test for in an audition is musicianship: sightreading and ear skills, primarily.

 

There are several things to test:

• sightreading pitches
• sightreading rhythms
• the ability of the singer to hear something and reproduce it vocally

Given the level of your singers, you will want to choose examples to read that start with something easy (where a singer of yours should be able to sing most notes correctly), then progressively move to more difficult examples. I've usually had 5-6 examples and will often skip some examples if the singer can sightread the first one easily. They progress in difficulty in both pitches and rhythms.

 

Remember, I'm auditioning college-level singers, so a first example might be one with fairly simple rhythms, a melody without accidentals and no difficult leaps. The next example might have more accidentals, tougher leaps, modulation, etc. The most difficult one should be one that separates the really good sightreader from the average or even pretty good one. I've used a few exercises with accompaniment or little duets as well. P.G. Alldahl has a great accompanied pseudo-baroque exercise he's composed  (used for a number of years with the world Youth Choir), but some little twists that only the best sightreaders would get.

 

I leave it up to the singer to sing on text (if there is one--often there is not), a neutral syllable of their choice, or solfege syllables).

 

In some circumstances I've also done separate rhythmic exercises. This has the advantage of better testing the separate abilities to read rhythm and pitch.

 

With more advanced choirs I've also used exerpts from Lars Edlund's Modus Novus, which lets me know if the singer can deal with non-tonal music and read intervals by themselves without a tonal context. I could also use an example from a work I'm planning to do (unlikely that they'd know it!).

 

Something that others have done is to have a returning quartet from the choir, who are prepared on the music to be read (excerpts of real music in this case), and have the auditionee replace the one with their voice part. This has the advantage of being more realistic--much more like the experience of actually reading in a choir, since you hear the other parts.

 

Since many of our singers do NOT read well, it is often useful to test the ear, or tonal memory, of the singer. My feeling has always been that if a singer has an excellent tonal memory, they will have the capability of learning to read more quickly--not to speak of the fact that they will be able to learn their part more quickly even before they learn to read (or read better).

 

If you haven't done this before, you can find many examples from a quick google search (or, in fact, on choralnet). The idea is again to begin with easy examples and gradually make them more challenging. I've usually done this in addition to sight-reading, others have done it only if the singer doesn't read well. Dale Warland does his with lots of changes of expression (dynamics, tempo, articulation) and looks to see if the singer picks up on those as well. Robert Fountain used to check applicants to his graduate conducting program by playing the first 4-5 notes of a 12-tone row, then keep adding a couple notes until the applicant couldn't get any more pitches.

 

However, with a choir where sightreading is not expected of every singer, tonal memory exercises can tell the conductor a lot. I suspect the same is true for children's choirs (but please tell me more about what you do).

 

Any instrumentalist would be expected to read dynamics, articulations, etc. We rarely do this with singers, but a professional choir could expect this. When I conducted the Seattle Symphony Chorale, I remember being startled when an auditionee sang all the dynamics on the page, something no other singer had done. Perhaps with advanced choirs, we should expect more!

 

So, once you've figured out what's appropriate to use for your singers, what else goes into this part of the audition?

 

I think most of you know that sightreading in an audition freaks out a lot of singers! So, how best to do it?

 

When I was at PLU, I did the exercises myself as part of the initial audition. I left the sightreading/tonal memory for the end of the audition--as I said in the previous post, I want to begin with something that the singer will find most comfortable. So the order might be: prepared piece, vocalises, sightreading, tonal memory. At UNT our grad students test sightreading before they come into the room where we hear them, so we simply get a score on sightreading from 1-5. Tonal memory is usually tested only if they don't sightread well.

 

Of course, you may want to know more, particularly the kind of motivation the singer will have to learn, or whether they even can learn their part outside of rehearsal.

 

I had an interesting conversation with my friend Richard Nance this summer (I hope many of you heard his fantastic performance with the PLU Choir of the West in Dallas this past March). Richard does two additional short auditions for that choir. One is to assign an excerpt of a piece to be learned that they get about 24 hours ahead of when they'll do it. It's not easy and has at least some counterpoint. The singers are assigned to octets and meet with Richard the next day for a 15 minute rehearsal on the music. This gives him an idea of not only if they can learn their part, but how they respond in a rehearsal. Are they flexible if he asks them to change something? How quickly do they respond/learn? The singers often get together in a larger group the night before to work on the music, but he says that's fine--it just shows their motivation.

 

In addition, he does a short individual audition with each singer in which he gets to know them better, does the sightreading part of the audition, but also has them play their part on the piano with a piece from upcoming repertoire. This gives him a further idea of whether the singer is able to learn a part or fix a problem section on their own.

 

I think it's a fascinating and great way to find out more about the potential singers for his top choir.

 

If you have additional ideas for auditions or thoughts about what I've said, please share in the comments.