I advanced! It’s only the second time I’ve advanced out of 29 auditions.

It was an interesting preparation process. I was in the midst of transcribing/arranging a lot of new music for The Pan-Tones, and also learning to sing. Because I was spending a lot of time on this project, I didn’t specifically practice the excerpts all that much. However, my brain was very much focused on music, and especially listening (because of the transcription).

I did practice a lot of fundamentals on piccolo, especially sound, scales, and vibrato. I hadn’t really spent dedicated time on this before. Previously, I’d relied on my flute chops to “carry” my piccolo playing.

Other than that, I recorded basically everything I played when it came to the excerpts during my practice. There was a lot of listening. I would play the excerpt, stop, listen. Repeat until my practice time ran out.

I was surprised by how much I could improve my playing this way. I realized that the thing was not that I didn’t know how it should sound, but that I didn’t actually know how I sounded. Mind blown.

Here’s my prelim recording:

There are some clear flaws in the two piccolo excerpts, so I was surprised that I advanced. Perhaps my flute playing was strong enough to pass me through… I have requested feedback from the committee, so I will share that as well.

I felt my semi-final round was pretty solid, but didn’t advance to the final round. Nonetheless, felt good about my performance!

Overall, a very positive and affordable audition experience!

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Expenses

Gas: $79

Hotel: $138

Recordings for study: $10

Shostakovich parts: $12

Total: $239